It is not really a race though, for most it is the most sensible thing to do and whilst you are paying off a debt, you are paying towards something you will finally own outright that will very rarely depreciate in value by more than you are putting in.
You could rent quite happily, if you wanted to, for 40 years but at the end of it, what have you got left? Nothing but having lived in properties that you chose to live in and the comforts that they provided you. The next rent check is still due and will always be due. You have nothing to fall back on is something goes wrong.
My missus and I have experienced the highs and lows of incomes and redundancies, but we have always preferred to pay a mortgage as house prices generally always go up.
Our house which we bought 2 years ago nearly to the day, has increased in value by over 25%. That is our bonus and an investment you cannot match investing on anything else.
Yes, house prices in a chosen area are all relative, but within ten years or so we will be debt free within our forties and be sitting on a lump of bricks worth something close to half a million quid and mortgage has
always cost less than the rental equivalent.
When our child has grown up and we are not tied to our area we will be free to move somewhere quieter and cheaper in the country and live our days out pretty much for free.
Now you can view buying as something stupid, but you cannot argue with the inevitable outcome of not buying. You
will regret it one day.
I just find the whole ethos of it being to hard to get on the property ladder pretty daft. Work hard, save hard and reap the benefits when you are older. It is what my parents did when they were young. They found it hard, were up to their eyeballs in mortgage payments and moved into their first place in London and lived on the floor for two years with boxes as tables.
Now they are incredibly comfortable due to taking that first risk (and working hard). If I am honest their lives now make me a little jealous.
Because it is done in Europe does not make it the best thing to do.
Anyway I'm drunk so sorry for waffling.