Archive for October, 2009
If you are currently paying out a monthly fee to live in someone else’s property, you’re throwing money out your window—or, actually, your landlord’s window. If you are writing a rent check every month, at the end of the year you have twelve cancelled checks to show for your investment. Your landlord, on the other hand, gets to use your money to cover his mortgage payments, property taxes, and the insurance on his building.
Your rent should be going for an investment in your future. If you buy a house, a condominium, or a cooperative apartment and put your monthly rent toward a mortgage, you will be building equity in a piece of property as well as building yourself a nest. Since we all need a place to live and we all like a good return on our hard-earned money, it only makes sense to buy property, not lease it!
Why are you still renting? Is it because your parents did it? Or because you feel you can’t afford to buy? Is it because you can’t bear the idea of being responsible for the heat going off or the toilet overflowing? In most cases, it’s you, the tenant, who suffers when something goes wrong with your rental unit, because you’re on-site and have to deal with the problem immediately. You get reimbursed for expenses but not for your time and inconvenience.