To Buy or Lease? Our of little adventure

As the cost of houses continues to decline, we asked ourselves “should we buy or rent?”  “You should buy because if you rent, you are throwing away your money.”  “You should rent, because if something breaks down, the landlord will fix it.”  We took a different approach and rented a house for 7 months. After the lease was up, we would then decide whether to continue to rent or jump into buying our first home. 

We went with a house that was close to our target monthly mortgage goal, and it was in a great neighborhood and not far from work.  The first thing we needed to do was get appliances. Because we knew this was temporary, we decided to rent instead of purchasing.  As we moved into our temporary home, we notice that spiders, wasps, and house centipedes had moved in before us, so we had to get a exterminator make monthly visits.  

As time progressed and the weather warmed up, we had to focus on the lawn. Sadly, our neighbors living on either side of us were cursed with not-so-green grass just like us. Meanwhile the neighbors across the street from us were obsessed with their lawn.  Everyday they were watering, seeding, mowing, weeding, and edging.  We, on the other hand, did not care that our grass was not as green as the other side.  

To our monthly bills, we also had to add water, garbage, sewer, lawn maintenance, exterminator, insurance, and other miscellaneous costs that showed up with renting a house. At the end, we had to pay $500 more a month to live in a house, which resulted in working longer hours and spending less time with each other.