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" Another weekend, another housewarming bash. At 28, it seems like I&amp;#039;ve hit that time of life where a number of my luckier\u00A0friends are buying their own place and finally becoming &amp;#039;proper adults&amp;#039;. Home ownership seems to be as much a British institution as being obsessed with tea \u2013 and call me weird, but I think both suck. I&amp;#039;m a serial renter and I love it.\u00A0My husband and I are\u00A0currently living in our eighth rental property after nine years of moving around\u00A0various parts of the South. When it comes to homes, we&amp;#039;re\u00A0homeiscuous and proud.\u00A0 So why, in the eyes of friends, family and society, do\u00A0we still feel like we&amp;#039;ve failed a bit? In the UK, renting has a reputation for being secondary to owning. Just a temporary thing people do before they can finally *live the dream* and get a mortgage. Nothing says &amp;#039;I&amp;#039;ve made it&amp;#039; like being up to your eyeballs in debt, appaz.\u00A0 It&amp;#039;s baffling, really. Because elsewhere in Europe, the majority of people (even the wealthy) rent for decades quite gladly. It&amp;#039;s just a way of life. In fact, they find our national obsession with ownership quite absurd. Like most of our\u00A0problems, I blame the parents. Ask yours\u00A0how much they paid for the home they raised you in, and it&amp;#039;ll probably be some 4-figure sum that&amp;#039;ll make you laugh, cry and vom all at once. They followed in their parents&amp;#039; footsteps before them, and it feels we&amp;#039;re expected to follow in ours. It may have made sense back then, but so did a lot of other things that didn&amp;#039;t stand the test of time. Dodgy perms, for one.\u00A0 Let&amp;#039;s look at the facts: the average full-time salary is\u00A0currently around \u00A326,500 and the average house price is\u00A0around \u00A3179,817 (considerably more in the South). So unless you&amp;#039;ve got a really well-paid job or wealthy parents, buying is simply not an option. BUT THAT&amp;#039;S OKAY!!!\u00A0 Because, no matter what non-renters&amp;#039; disapproving glances suggest, it&amp;#039;s perfectly fine\u00A0to rent. In fact, in many ways it&amp;#039;s better.   Contrary to what society thinks, you are not second best if you rent. In fact, your gaff will probably be nicer than half your mates who compromised on location/size/other, just to afford something that&amp;#039;s &amp;#039;theirs&amp;#039; (or will be in about 30 years once they&amp;#039;ve paid that mortgage and interest off...) When you rent, you can have two bed, three beds, en-suites, mezzanines, pretty flooring, gorgeous gardens - you can have it all. You can move wherever you want, whenever you want. If you decide you hate an area, or your neighbours, you can up and go. If the boiler breaks, you&amp;#039;re not the one footing the hefty bill.  Sure, there are bad bits as well. Am I stoked to be paying an extortionate amount to fund my landlord gallivanting around a different country every month? No. Do I feel queasy when I add up what we&amp;#039;ve spent in rent in the past year, let alone eight years? For sure. Is there the possibility we&amp;#039;ll get chucked out next week? Always.\u00A0But as far as I&amp;#039;m concerned, it&amp;#039;s the lesser of two evils.  When I weigh up buying the\u00A0poxy 1.5-bed above a kebab shop on the outskirts I can just about afford,\u00A0versus living in spitting distance of Chipotle and having a roof terrace for my cat, I know which feels more like &amp;#039;living the dream&amp;#039;.  Haters can scoff at the money-wasting all they like, but who SAYS those thousands they&amp;#039;re &amp;#039;saving&amp;#039; by not renting will be better off in a property? If house prices carry on inflating, there&amp;#039;s the very real risk the market will crash and they&amp;#039;ll be living in a house worth a fraction of what they paid for it. There&amp;#039;s no shame at all\u00A0in renting, and if the predictions that more renters will outweigh owners in 2020 is true \u2013 the homeowners will be the minority. We&amp;#039;ll finally join the legions of Europe that love renting and choose it over buying.\u00A0 We&amp;#039;re in our twenties. We should be out, doing young-person stuff, YOLOing it up all over town. Not weighing up whether to get another gin &amp;amp;amp; tonic\u00A0or go home, pop that tenner into an ISA instead and tuck ourselves in for an early night. Buying might be seen as an investment in your future, but I think renting is an investment in the present.\u00A0 Renting isn&amp;#039;t a dirty word, and it&amp;#039;s tragic to see so many young people sacrificing their\u00A0youth wasting time working for\u00A0an impossible dream. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.co.uk/worklife/careers/a36431/is-renting-forever-that-bad/>