Should I Buy or Should I Rent?

I’ve been married for a month now! 🙂 Planning an “intimate and elegant wedding” was an exhausting (but quite rewarding) experience in must-have’s and nice-to-have’s.

Right now, we’re staying in a studio condo in the city we’re renting. It also functions as a home office so we have both personal stuff and work stuff all around the house. It was just ok for single living, but now with both of us and all our stuff, it’s just too crowded and cluttered. Even with constant purging of unnecessary stuff, they do have a tendency to accumulate.

So, we went on a hunt for a new apartment and found a wonderful 2 bedroom just 15 minutes away from our current place. *Must take pictures when we visit again*

Pros:

  • Accessible to public transport (MRT, bus, jeeps)
  • The amenities are pretty awesome too (a proper swimming pool, gym, clubhouse).
  • And the community seems safe. Kampante naman ang feeling.
  • Security guards are courteous.
  • More than 2x the space we have now
  • Includes a parking spot in the building’s basement
  • Good feng shui layout
  • A/C units provided for each room so we won’t have to buy
  • Comes with a proper gas stove with oven
  • 2 Bathrooms!!
  • Nice finishings.

Cons:

  • Building doesn’t have a proper garbage chute. How silly is that?
  • Might flood outside. We’re told no naman, but we’ll see.
  • More than 2x the rent for our current place
  • Not quite easy to commute to the mall (because now, I can just hop on a jeep or even walk). But I guess that might be a good psychological barrier so I won’t spend so much sa mall.

So really, how can you beat that list of pros? Then my tita mentioned again about how our family friends would ask her about where we newlyweds are staying. They’re expecting us to have our own place na versus renting.

Hello? We really don’t know where we want to live yet so we’re not in the proper mindset to commit to a 10-year (or even 15 or 30 or 5) for a property. We’d have to be able to justify that we’d live in that same area for at least 5 years, commit to the monthlies and maintenance, and all the perks and peeves of home ownership. Which at this point, we’re just not ready for.

And apparently, the Is it Better to Buy or to Rent calculator agrees with me. YMMV (Your mileage may vary).

Though now that we’ve gotten married, paid for a really beautiful wedding ourselves, and got to travel together a few times, we’ve ticked off some items on the to-do list and we just might take the plunge in the next few years…

What about rent as money you’re “throwing away” every month instead of investing into an asset you’ll eventually own? Rent is really just an operating cost. You just have to spend it to be able to make more money. So, we’ll earn that rent back and much more – so we can have more money to invest or to give or to spend. I think it’s the same whether you’re an employee or self-employed. If you could live nearer your workplace and save time, energy, and money by not commuting – there are cases when that makes sense versus owning a home in a remote village. Or you could work nearer where you live.

Then again, maybe that’s just me. We do live in a country where people don’t value their time as much as physical money.

So anyway ghost month is over. On to new beginnings! Happy long weekend!