Buy House or Rent House?

The advantages to owning a home are typically long term advantages. Similarly the advantages to renting are typically short term advantages. If you could accurately predict what the next thirty years of your life will be then the answer would be obvious. Often security comes with the heavy price of boredom.

Choose a path and then walk it. See what happens along the way. Smell a few roses and dodge the jackals along the way.

I thought all houses were state owned. Oh well, that's progress I guess.

I'd get a house that is at least 500 feet higher than the choking coal dust and smog that is plaguing the country.

Or a pollution mask.

In an emerging economy, buying might be better than renting.

It depends on where you are and what circumstances you are in.

Buying a house when being married might be to expensive. You might end up investing more in the house than you ever get out from it.

But bear in mind a place to live is not an investment in the first place and you have to count the finace costs.

Just in terms of money I heard to brothers went different ways:

1. rented house, never had to or got to spend money on doing them up, put all excess money in shares

2. bought houses, made them up, sold them for a profit. moved on do it again.

The brother renting came up first in terms of being better off (but had to live in sometimes scrap houses).

The house market might define the outcome in the end of their live or at retirement age.

You really need to do your home work on how much renting costs and what you can save versus what the house costs (in terms of finance costs) and how much you have on leftovers after words.

I tend to think that owning a house gives you more security than having shares.

I still pay for mine.

Trading a form of value for another and receiving a certificate of ownership is the process of purchase. or A contract to make installments of value overtime, a variety of contract types are possible: contract for deed is often very helpful if a lump sum down payment for conventional loan is a high hurtle. use of a form of collateral; real property, a vehicle, art, etc., in lieu of monetary deposit/down payment. or other conventional means each requiring a long term commitment.

You're in China? I don't know how real estate works there, but here in the US you'd talk to a real estate agent or broker about your options. One option is rent-to-own. Another option is to get a cheap apartment, or one where you share expenses with a room mate, and save money toward a down payment. A third option exists for a small number of home buyers which is a zero-down-payment loan.

I have no idea about the current Chinese housing and loan market.

Down here (like many places in the world) you can put in a down payment on a house and get a loan for the remainder which you pay off over time.

Have you considered going into partnership with a few friends, all putting money in and purchasing a house to live in together you couldn't individually afford to do so (either with or without a loan)?

Alternatively there is always the potential option of moving to an area where housing is more affordable.

If you are going to make the commitment to buy, do it soon. I waited too long to start, because my job moved me every year for quite a while, and I saw what others went through trying to sell houses 300 miles away while paying for a new one. I now am retirement age and still have a mortgage. NOT good.

That does bring up a warning point, doesn't it? If you think your profession will move you in 10 years or less, better rent because local housing markets can tank and you can get stuck with a payment in two locations while living in only one.