# Thoughts on Renting



## Dunpleecin (Dec 20, 2012)

Many people advocate renting in Spain before buying and many more agree saying you must rent first.

But as someone who moved a year ago and bought having decided where I wanted to live for numerous reasons, I can't see how renting can be that advantageous, especially in the long term. I might add that not for one moment have we looked back and regretted our decision. And latest estimates show our house to be a similar value to when we bought it, not that we have any intention of selling up.

Of course there are various scenarios to consider:

1. You might have retired and sold your house and be of advancing years with no one to pass on your property to. In this case then I would say enjoy your money and rent.

2. You have literally no idea where you want to go and so decide to rent several places on a short term basis so you can decide. Again this makes a little sense but you're still wasting money you'll never get back so where do you stop?

3. You have no choice. No property anywhere else and without sufficient capital are not able to buy. Again it's a no brainer.

What I don't understand though are people who still bang the rent drum to people who have decided where is right for them and who want to buy a nicely priced property but are almost bullied or shamed into renting by people on here. I read one post from someone who say they rented for 5 years before buying somewhere. I cant possibly fathom why putting upwards of 30,000 quid in someones back pocket makes any sense whatsoever. 

So a genuine question for the rent advocates; Why on earth do you try and pour scorn on intelligent people who have done their homework and have decided to buy somewhere and feel excited enough to post on here for other advice?


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## Pazcat (Mar 24, 2010)

I agree with you mostly but everybody is different, it certainly makes sense to rent at first however. I'm glad we have and now know the situation far better whether we choose to rent or buy next.
The only real reason we would rent for the next 4 or 5 years is if we couldn't pay a mortgage off in that time so it's 50/50 at the moment.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Firstly, not every decision that people take is motivated by financial gain. We often forget that not everyone gets out the pocket calculator when making decisions, even important ones. 
Secondly, it is very silly to state the choice between renting and buying as a fixed and firm rule. I have always taken a 'horses for courses' approach to the issue. What suits some, won't suit others.
Thirdly, one's idea of where one wishes to settle may not be a permanent one. Many circumstances can conspire to force a move...illness, financial problems, horrible new neighbours..

We lived in our own home for over thirty years before leaving the UK. We also owned properties we rented out. Now we cheerfully rent. So we have a multi-faceted experience.
Since we left the UK we must indeed have paid enough in rent to buy a luxurious villa. But I'm so glad we didn't. We've been renting happily now for over eight years, three in Prague, the rest here. In both places we chose large 'luxury' houses with 'grounds' and swimming pools. We were able to leave Prague with no worries about selling a house and were able to move into our present home in Spain when our first choice proved disastrous.
We are into year one of a new five year contract, having already lived here since spring 2009. When that's up we shall move into a similar house in Estepona - it belongs to a friend who uses it only for large family parties and doesn't want to risk renting it to strangers.
My son and his wife are both very high earners. They have a large house in the UK and property in Spain. They do not need any money we might leave. So hopefully there won't be any left when we pop our clogs.
Our landlord is excellent, he does all necessary repairs, we are in a lovely quiet area, our neighbours are our friends....why pay over 600 -700k euros to buy a similar house which my son and family wouldn't want to have the burden of maintaining or selling?
I cannot believe we are the only people in a similar position. More and more retirees are SKINs - I cannot imagine wanting my mother to skimp and save in her old age to leave money to me and besides I'm not in favour of inherited wealth. You make your own way in life.
But...had I left the UK thirty or more years ago, I might well have had a different view of things.
So I would bang neither drum...you decide whether to buy or rent according to your individual circumstances. And let's not forget that not everyone can afford to buy. Neither should we forget those stuck with properties they wish to sell in order to 'escape' as one disgruntled poster put it.
But imo it's imperative to rent for at least a year before committing to buy.


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## Leper (May 12, 2010)

First, congratulations on a well thought out post. Secondly, congratulations on realising your dream on your purchase.

You needed a truck-load of items to be right before you purchased. You got your hole-in-one, well done. But, if one or two of those items went wrong you could have made the worst decision of your life and would continue to regret your impulse.

Renting has never been cheaper. With little expenditure you can decide if the resort of your dreams really is the resort of your dreams. Furthermore, the area within the resort might or might not suit you. Remember, when you buy property in Spain you are not just dipping your toe onto the water, you are immersing yourself with the results of a huge decision.

Make sure, you make the right decision. I will propose renting-first always and I rest my case.


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## el pescador (Mar 14, 2013)

TBH you have to think of what happens if you don't like the place and want to move?
If you were desperate to move you may have to consider a bigger hit on your finances than renting for a year.
Would you really be a lot worse of by having the capital for buying invested and renting?

I think the insurance of getting the right place for the price is far more important than just judging things on the basis of price.


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

I dont think anyone bullies or pours scorn - but its one hell of a change. One minute you're in the UK and understand the house buying rules, knowing the areas you're looking at (not just the town, but the streets and their reputations etc) and you're fully knowledgable of surveys, stamp duty, land registry, solicitors, costs, development laws - you even speak the same language

In a lot of cases recently, renting allows you to get properties for cheaper than you see from the internet in the UK, partly by actually being there and partly because prices are dropping.

When we first planned our move to Spain, we put our UK house on the market and spent every night ploughing thru spanish properties and dreaming of what we wanted, how wonderful it would be to have "this and that". But in the end, we couldnt sell the UK house, so decided to rent. We found our dream house and rented it!!!! It was perfect!!!...........

......... a couple of months into the move, yes the house was wonderful, altho it was a bit too big and cost a fortune to heat - in fact we couldnt heat it, it was too big, but it was still wonderful, altho the garden was north facing and too big, but it was still wonderful, altho the bedroom terrace had a leak when it rained, oh and the next door neighbour kept chicken. No problem with that accept, every sunday morning he would catch, shoot, wring necks and the lorry would turn up to take the chicken to be .......... well cooked !!!!! It was in the middle of nowhere - which we wanted, altho it meant driving everywhere - even to the rubbish bin..... Oh and the Quarry behind the house, which you couldnt see, but when they exploded it - a few times a week, the dust was like a dark cloud which hung over the area for days and got everywhere - and the huge lorries carrying the rubble past our driveway...

Anyway, thats my reasoning for renting before you buy - you get to know the areas, the people, the neighbours, your needs, not just your wants and of course, you learn how house buying works. And as for the money on rent - well, you probably get that back because house prices are dropping. In fact property we looked at from our UK arm chair, we went to look at a few after we moved and they were still on the market and a good few 10,000€s cheaper. But in anycase, renting out our UK house, meant that the rental money was offset

It also has to be said - and I know its not the case for everyone, but if we had have bought - we'd be well and truly in the "wotsit" now. We had to move back to the UK, so we luckily had our UK house to move back to and we didnt have to sell a Spanish house.

Jo xxx


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## NickZ (Jun 26, 2009)

mrypg9 said:


> Firstly, not every decision that people take is motivated by financial gain. We often forget that not everyone gets out the pocket calculator when making decisions, even important ones.


One of the reasons to suggest renting first is the calculator 

It's already been suggested what happens if you aren't happy and want to move? The average person on this forum isn't a native Spaniard returning home. You've got people that will moving to a new country that at most they've visited on holiday. A bad holiday is often better then an average day. Some things aren't evident until you've lived in an area for awhile. Some things you don't notice until you need them.

Then you have the fact buying means all the costs of ownership. Leaky roofs to leaky foundations. 

But even if you don't want to move renting isn't always a negative. Nothing stops a person from investing the capital that would be needed to buy a home. 

Now personally I'd argue in favour of buying even if financially it's often worse. If you buy nothing stops you from changing a home to fit your needs or taste.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Anyone who decides to either rent or buy on the basis of 'bullying' internet posts really shouldn't be in charge of their own finances to do either as they clearly lack any mental competence to do so.


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## Lynn R (Feb 21, 2014)

I bought my house in 2003, with the intention of using it for holidays initially and eventually retiring there full time (which we did, rather earlier than planned). I've never regretted buying it, we still really like both the house and the location, and it has been both a comfortable and relatively low cost base for us which has allowed us 10 years of additional retirement. The "value" has certainly fallen from the kind of prices similar houses nearby were fetching in 2007/2008, but I didn't want to sell it then and I don't now, so what does that matter? 

If I did find myself wanting to sell, for whatever reason, judging by what other houses nearby have been selling for in recent times (and sensibly priced ones have found buyers without problems, although it's a different story for owners who still advertise their properties at silly prices which bear no relation to today's market) then I believe it would still achieve a small profit on what I paid, even including the taxes. Therefore I would get back all the money I invested in it. However, if we'd rented for the last 11 years that money would be gone.

However, I know that eventually I will probably have to move (reluctantly) as the area isn't very accessible and I might, in later life, find that a problem. At that stage, I think I would probably prefer to rent. I don't particularly want my family to have to deal with the problems of paying inheritance tax and then trying to sell a property in another country after my death, and as things stand at the moment, if the bulk of my assets are held in cash outside Spain, and my heirs are not Spanish residents, then they wouldn't be subject to Spanish inheritance tax.

However, I might well change my mind when the time comes, depending on all kinds of factors - what property prices are like, what rental prices are like, whether I could find a rental I really liked, etc. etc.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

NickZ said:


> One of the reasons to suggest renting first is the calculator
> 
> It's already been suggested what happens if you aren't happy and want to move? The average person on this forum isn't a native Spaniard returning home. You've got people that will moving to a new country that at most they've visited on holiday. A bad holiday is often better then an average day. Some things aren't evident until you've lived in an area for awhile. Some things you don't notice until you need them.
> 
> ...


Two points: one, some of us are at the stage in life where we neither need nor want to get the calculator out...we've had a lifetime of that

and secondly: changing your home to fit your needs or taste may have been easy once but it sure as hell ain't now...ask extranjero.
If we'd bought in Prague, as friends appalled at the rent we were paying urged us to do, we'd most likely be stuck there now and very miserable.


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## thrax (Nov 13, 2008)

My outlaws bought land and built a house 11 years ago. They spend a total of around €400,000 for the purchase, build and other projects since. Prior to the crash it was estimated to be worth €750,000. The decided last month to sell up and had it valued. It is now worth, tops, €240,000 and if they want a quick sale then around €190,000. They are staying put!!


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## Nignoy (Jun 4, 2010)

well we hope to move over the big pond very shortly,surely it would be safer for us to rent and have a look round before buying a property,it is not like here, where even on a housing development like ours the smallest plot of land is half an acre ,so close noisy neighbours are not a problem,but other things must be looked, access and proximity to services and shops, to late to check on this information when you are commited to buy ,we will rent and have a look round first,


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## stevec2x (Mar 24, 2012)

It's down to personal circumstances. In our case, we own two properties in the UK - each of which is being let for approx 500 quid per month. The rent on the place we have in Spain is only 350 euros per month and we could only afford to buy somewhere as nice as this by using the proceeds from the sale of both properties in the UK. If we did that, we would not have enough income to live on. Simples!

Also, in the current economic climate (the euro-crisis is still awaiting a resolution) - I don't want to invest large amounts of money as euros instead of pounds (although this is complicated by the fact that one UK property is in Glasgow!!)


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## Nignoy (Jun 4, 2010)

stevec2x said:


> It's down to personal circumstances. In our case, we own two properties in the UK - each of which is being let for approx 500 quid per month. The rent on the place we have in Spain is only 350 euros per month and we could only afford to buy somewhere as nice as this by using the proceeds from the sale of both properties in the UK. If we did that, we would not have enough income to live on. Simples!
> 
> Also, in the current economic climate (the euro-crisis is still awaiting a resolution) - I don't want to invest large amounts of money as euros instead of pounds (although this is complicated by the fact that one UK property is in Glasgow!!)


surely a rule to go by is, not to invest more than you can afford to walk away from with a smile on your face


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## baldilocks (Mar 7, 2010)

jojo said:


> Anyway, thats my reasoning for renting before you buy - you get to know the areas, the people, the neighbours, your needs, not just your wants and of course, you learn how house buying works.
> Jo xxx


But they are my reasons for doing thorough research. So many come with eyes wide shut and base their planning (if they actually do any at all) on what looks nice, is convenient to the beach and the bar, what the estate agent tells them and what they saw on "A Hone in the Sun". Sheer stupidity.

It has been commented before, that we are "living in our bit of heaven on earth" - maybe we are, but it is only because we put several years research and planning into it to make sure that we got it right, first time. From inception to realisation, the planning all told took some 8 years and we had started with a list of six countries with which we had links (language, relatives, holidays, etc) and eventually whittled them down to one - Spain, then it was a case of identifying climates, areas, cultures, etc. Then on to specifics - campo, town, city, village, etc. (including facilities offered); then type of property to meet our needs (couple - middle aged, now 54 and 72, plus m-i-l now 83); then find the house/bungalow/flat that would satisfy the criteria at the price we could afford.


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## Dunpleecin (Dec 20, 2012)

Some great replies to my OP. Certainly gives some insight into the many things to consider and as someone rightly said, not all the decisions are based on the calculator, but I suspect many are.

Anyway, great debate, thanks all for joining in with well put posts.


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## mrypg9 (Apr 26, 2008)

Dunpleecin said:


> Some great replies to my OP. Certainly gives some insight into the many things to consider and as someone rightly said, not all the decisions are based on the calculator, but I suspect many are.
> 
> Anyway, great debate, thanks all for joining in with well put posts.


Thanks for giving us something to think about!

As I said, what suits me now in my dotage wouldn't have suited me forty years ago!


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## Pesky Wesky (May 10, 2009)

> *Dunpleecing* If the people who are asking are intelligent, and why shouldn't they be, then they know that when they ask for advice that's what they get. Whether they follow it or not is up to each intelligent person to decide for themselves.


I know sometimes people get carried away giving advice , but I don't think pouring scorn on buyers is very frequent, is it? Questioning the the rationale behind it may be, or pointing out why buying in a place you've only ever holidayed in during the summer might not work out in the long term is another possibility, but pouring scorn??


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## buble (Apr 29, 2011)

The first five years of the ten I spent near Alicante were fantastic. I woke up every morning as happy as Larry. Then came the economic recession. Shops, bars and restaurants closing, less live music to enjoy (I'm a musician) and more beggars on the streets! Spain isn't what it was a few years back, and the difficult bureaucracy, casts a cloud over the whole business!!!!!!!!
A dodgy Spanish lawyer nicked my £60,000 house deposit, and the government siezed the full payment for the property (held in the lawyers clients account) pending his trial. So I was forced to rent a villa, not an appartment, they're far too noisy!! It took four years to get my money back (not the deposit, that disappeared), and there was no interest, the government kept that!! but the way things have gone, I would have been a lot worse off now, had I bought.
With things being so quiet, I became bored over the last two years, so moved back to the UK, where I have happily continued with my hobbies of playing in bands, spear fishing in Dorset, archery, bowls, and sailing.
Spain ain't what it used to be!!


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## thrax (Nov 13, 2008)

buble said:


> The first five years of the ten I spent near Alicante were fantastic. I woke up every morning as happy as Larry. Then came the economic recession. Shops, bars and restaurants closing, less live music to enjoy (I'm a musician) and more beggars on the streets! Spain isn't what it was a few years back, and the difficult bureaucracy, casts a cloud over the whole business!!!!!!!!
> A dodgy Spanish lawyer nicked my £60,000 house deposit, and the government siezed the full payment for the property (held in the lawyers clients account) pending his trial. So I was forced to rent a villa, not an appartment, they're far too noisy!! It took four years to get my money back (not the deposit, that disappeared), and there was no interest, the government kept that!! but the way things have gone, I would have been a lot worse off now, had I bought.
> With things being so quiet, I became bored over the last two years, so moved back to the UK, where I have happily continued with my hobbies of playing in bands, spear fishing in Dorset, archery, bowls, and sailing.
> Spain ain't what it used to be!!


So you are no longer in Madrid? Your location on here?


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## buble (Apr 29, 2011)

Since when has Madrid been near "Alicante"?
When I come over to see friends, I'm near Alicante.
Does that answer your question?


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## Trubrit (Nov 24, 2010)

A bit of a snotty reply especially as your location says Madrid


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## jojo (Sep 20, 2007)

Maybe buble could change his/her "location" I did when I moved back to the UK, well I kinda have both now, cos I flit back and forth. I'm sure it wasnt meant as "snotty" lol!!!!

Jo xxx


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## buble (Apr 29, 2011)

I do apologise to "thrax", I didn't realised that I hadn't changed my forum location from Madrid to Alicante, and thought that my post hadn't been read properly 
Location now changed to Hampshire


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