Momus talked recently about the benefits of renting rather than owning. According to Nick, those who rent are more radical, better looking, sweeter smelling and generally more Momus-like than those who buy. All the cool kids live in Geneva, apparently, where renting is up to 85%, whereas in staid, grey London only 41% rent.
Tom Hodgkinson has also noted in his last book, How to be Free, that a mortgage is a ‘pledge to the death’, grinding you down with anxiety, forcing you to work hard 40 hours a week to pay it off, rather than idling.
These things spring to mind because, on Tuesday, Laura and I are going to buy our first house together and are both rather excited.
Having spent the past seven years renting, it will be nice to be able to truly inhabit our space and turn it into a proper home. In all our previous residences, we have shirked the urge to personalize and have rather lived as though we were in a rather crappy hotel: the posters and bourgeois art of the previous owners remained on the walls, the sofas exuded an inevitable beigeness; we adapted our lives to the circumstances we found ourselves. Now we will be able to make of it whatever we want, whether Gothic folly or minimalist studio, without having a landlord to deal with.
Walking around our current flat this morning, I tried to imagine what Loyd Grossman would say if I was featured on Through the Keyhole. What identifies the flat as mine? What red herrings would Grossman use to throw Eve Pollard off the scent?
The fact is, that very little indeed identifies the flat as mine. You could go through the books and notice the combination of James Joyce, Dr.Johnson, Franz Kafka and Tony Robbins.
You could try to distract them by looking at Laura’s objects:
But apart from these things it is really without personality. Hopefully this will change with the new place.
For me the problem isn’t being either a buyer or a renter, it is the modern habit of moving house too often. Surely the ideal is to buy a house good enough and adaptable enough to live in your entire life? I can’t think of anything better than laying down roots and seeking Epicurean contentment. Can you?
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Renting means being deprived of security, any possibility of financial ease, and any kind of real ownership for longer.
It’s a sad case that we live in a world with two kinds of people: Those who will always have to pay to live on the land of others; and those who get paid to have their excess land lived in. What was it we hated about feudalism again?
I know a great many immigrants who have left England under the disillusion that, no matter how long or hard they worked, they would never be able to own their own place or escape the huge financial pressure that not owning implies.
I would say good luck with your purchase, but seeing as you can make it, I presume you already have it! Still, the thought counts…
Although I dont live in England..I’d still like to say good luck and I hope your new house will become everything you hope for. Myself and my husband were renters until age 37. Disgusted with the thought that every year our landlords used our rent $ to take a nice long vacation, we jumped and bought a farmhouse built in 1900, in one of the last affordable neighborhoods in Seattle, WA. Both of us being old-skool punks, buying a house seemed an odd thing to do. We have had only 2 lovely years so far.. and even spent our 2 week vacations at home remodeling to suit ourselves. We may have to pay off a 30 yr. mortgage… but in the next 28 years we will have so much fun!!! Owning is worth it! and then we’ll retire into our own paradise.. built by us.