No surprises here
Renting now cheaper than buying
The cost of renting a house in England and Wales is cheaper than the cost of buying it with a mortgage, say market analysts Hometrack. Private rents in 2006 were two-thirds the cost of a 100% mortgage on a two- or three-bedroom house, for a young household on average incomes.
For many years, renting a home was thought to be just as expensive as buying one. But that position has been changed by the rapid rise in house prices.
Home ownership is the biggest and most expensive myth of capitalism. Biggest, because, well everyone knows the lines don't they. You have to "get your foot on the property ladder" because "renting is dead money". Expensive because it's a debt you'll spend the rest of your working life repaying as you get sucked into the pathetic, thoughtless cycle of moving up in order to show the world how well you're doing. Baaaa.
I had my ranting head on at work a few months ago and over lunch I, hopefully convinced one of my younger colleagues of the error of this train of thought. She'd obviously been listening to her parents (she'll need to grow out of that sharpish) who'd rolled out all the clichés and she was beating herself up for being 28 and still without either foot on the ladder.
"So" I started, "rent is dead money is it. How much did your lunch cost?"
"About £3"
"Dead money"
"What?!?!"
As a Marxist, one gets used to the look which invariably accompanies that 'What?!?!' It's a mix of incredulity and pity - how can I be so stupid as to question the wisdom on which society thrives, how sad it is that I just don't get it. Poor little red.
"It's dead money. Six hours from now you'll be sat on the pot dropping your lunch out into the bowl. What a waste of money."
"But it's nourished me, kept me alive."
"And in return for my rent money I get place that nourishes me. It's warm, has hot water, room for my books, space for my cats to run about. If the heating busts I ring the landlord and it gets fixed. If I decide to move on (most unlikely for some time) I give notice and find another place. There's no stamp duty, no legal fees, no chains. It's easy! All for £350 a month. Why would I want to pay £900+ a month on a mortgage and not have enough money for anything else like the fine wines which the world has to offer?"
"Hmmm, I suppose."
That hmmm is another thing you get used to as a Marxist. It means 'what you say makes great sense and is more than likely true, but it just doesn't compute with the lifetime of lies I have absorbed. Better to ignore the truth than to rock the boat.'
And there's the rub. Home ownership is more about social control than anything else. If you're tied to a house you can barely afford, you're tied to you job, which you probably hate. So you knuckle down and climb the corporate ladder not because you want to but because you have to. You have to pay your mortgage. And with each pay-rise you pay more in taxes. As you aspire to bigger house, following the rest of the flock (you don't want to be the only person at your grade living in a 3 bedroomed house do you? Only 3?), you pay more taxes, contributing more of your money to the liars, warmongers and crooks who run the country. They depend on you toeing the line. Their morally bankrupt society relies on you getting a pay rise each year, contributing more taxation, staying put, not asking questions. Doing anything else would rock the boat, mark you out as a subversive. A subversive for thinking for yourself. What is to be done?
