Why renting should be your #1 choice when moving
Whenever you’re looking to move to a new town, the first thing you need to worry about is where you’re going to live. This brings up the question: is it better to rent or buy a home? Though buying a home does provide you with a sense of ownership and security, renting a home should definitely be considered before jumping the gun.
A rental property has significantly less maintenance for you to worry about, your landlord is the one who takes care of it. Many are concerned that landlords will not cooperate and take care of the property as they agree to, but this lack of regard for tenants is becoming a thing of the past. At this day in age tons of property management software programs, like Tenant File, allow landlords to actively manage their tenants and property’s to ensure that everything is being taken care of in a timely manner. As someone who is moving to a new town, you don’t want to have the burden of taking care of all the maintenance of your home (something that’s fully your responsibility if you buy a home), you want to be able to adjust to your new life.
Renting is also beneficial because of the lack of commitment it requires. The amount of time and money you need to invest when buying a home is significantly larger than when you rent a home, but this is just the short-term issue. Buying a home also commits you for the long-run too; a rental property may only require a minimum of a year lease (totally doable!) while buying a home commits you to that property for as long as it takes you to pay it off and/or sell it. Since you’re new to the town you may not know a lot about where you want to live yet, so renting a home can allow you to test out different areas to see what suits you best. Imagine buying a home and later finding out that the area of town you moved to is far from where you end up working, but because you bought the home, you’re stuck there.
Though there are tons of factors to consider and it is subjective, renting a home when you move to a new town instead of buying one should definitely be your first option. Check out this interactive calculator designed by the New York Times to see what works best for you!
