As a tenant of a house you have fewer worries

Her rental apartment in a luxury residential tower in Rotterdam gives her a bit of a New York-feeling, says Kelly Jayne Vink (33). She overlooks the city skyline and only needs to step outside the door for coffee, a cocktail or a takeaway. Is the microwave broken or is the toilet not flushing properly? One phone call and it’s taken care of. Recently, the building even has a service manager who can come pick up your laundry and take it to the dry cleaners.

“A lot is taken off my hands here,” says Vink, who owns a business as a social media manager. “Renting was the best decision ever.”

And that while it was advised against her by everyone. In 2013, Vink had bought her first house – out of necessity, because she could get a mortgage, but not a rental property. She was happy with it, but a lot had to be done in the long run. “I was then faced with the choice: either I’m going to pump a lot of money into this and stay there for a long time, or I’ll move and spend my money and energy on other things. Everyone advised me: buy. But with renting you are very flexible and it saves a lot of time. For me it stands for a high quality of life.”

Who can buy, will buy – otherwise you are very stupid. That is the social tenor. We talk about renting ‘still’ and buying a house ‘already’. About ‘housing career’ and ‘housing ambition’, which means that it is better to leave the rental market as soon as possible. Renting is throwing money away, we think.

Renting also gives flexibility

But renting can also be a conscious choice, prompted by considerations other than ‘not being able to buy’. Renting gives (in theory, in a functioning market) freedom and flexibility. Renters do not have to worry about insulating floors, cleaning facades or repairing foundations. “You are taken care of,” says Kelly Jayne Vink. Maintenance is included in the monthly costs. If something in my owner-occupied house was broken, I first asked for a few quotes. It all takes up space in your head. Now I never have to deal with a screwdriver myself.”

Or, as one Twitter user writes: “Renting is wonderful. I save for nice things instead of a heat pump. Can work less if I want to, because there is housing benefit. You can cancel and leave. If I die, I won’t take anything with me.”

The popularity of buying is clear from the latest version of the CBS Housing Survey. Almost all buyers (91 percent) who want to move house are looking for another owner-occupied home. Almost half of the tenants who want to move are looking for an owner-occupied home. That share has increased by six percentage points since 2018.

Buying became fashionable decades ago. Since 1986, home ownership has increased from 43 to 60 percent. The number of owner-occupied homes doubled from 2.3 to 4.6 million – mainly due to an increase in the number of owner-occupied apartments. The number of rental homes, on the other hand, has barely increased since 1986; only four percentage points, to 3.1 million in 2021.

Buying is financially smarter, is the generally valid reasoning: after all, whoever buys a house pays off part of the mortgage every month and thus builds up capital. When house prices rise, only time has to do its job: the home owner will automatically become richer. „The tenant is the loser of the housing market”, wrote Yrla van de Ven, economist and editor of the economic magazine ESB recently in The Financial Times. As a starter, she is unable to obtain a home for sale, which means that, like many of her peers, she has to rely on expensive rent in the private sector. As a result, the gap with young people who, with the help of their parents, do get a foot in the (purchased) door. “Homeowners see their wealth increase and renters don’t,” she wrote.

Still, Els de Vries (57), a real estate agent in Hoogeveen, advises her son not to buy. “I understand that you would throw money away by renting, but now you pay so much for a home that you get into financial problems in a recession,” she says. “Then you may have to sell your house and you will be left with a residual debt of two or three tons. Who’s stupid then?”

Don’t get involved with ‘idiocy’

She didn’t even buy it herself. “Almost four years ago I moved from Curaçao to the Netherlands. I went to look at an apartment for sale in Breda, but there was already so much outbid there. I don’t want to get involved in that idiocy. People go beyond their limits, they throw money away. Of course I want to win the top prize for my customers.”

Because there is no other option, her son now temporarily lives with her with his daughter. “We are working on a social rental home for him, with a rent of 530 euros. Then he can get by. And you can also make a rental home completely to your liking, in consultation with the corporation. So you can live there for a long time.”

That renting is “inferior” and buying “by definition the superior form of living” is a “deeply ingrained assumption” that has come to dominate for decades, writes urban geographer Cody Hochstenbach (University of Amsterdam) in his book. worn out. “Homeowners would take better care of their home and environment. They would be more independent and free, have control over their lives. Buyers would simply be better citizens than renters. It’s the myth of home ownership.”

That myth, he writes, has been deliberately fueled since the 1980s by politicians, brokers and mortgage lenders. Margaret Thatcher, as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, was fully committed to promoting home ownership, and this movement was followed in (among others) the Netherlands. Fiscal discounts such as the mortgage interest deduction and subsidies for homeowners have made buying financially attractive.

In the meantime, policy has made renting less attractive, tenants’ organizations emphasize. The possibility of temporary letting, for example, erodes tenancy rights, they say – notwithstanding the increased price. “As a tenant you get the choice: buy or die,” says Willy Lourenssen, who has been active in the tenant movement for decades. “Every year I see new rules that make it more difficult as a tenant to resist. The rental sector is being marginalized.”

Jan Kok, co-author of the textbook Working on living and director of the Amsterdam Tenants’ Association, it is striking that buyers are almost always portrayed in the media as ‘happy people’. “After all, buying is a party. The attractiveness of property formation through the home is maintained not only in advertising but also in the media. Tenants usually appear gloomy, having to deal with problems such as rent increases, demolition and mold.”

Also read: What is a reasonable rental price?

The decision to move is less determined by housing needs and housing wishes, and more by the possibility of making a profit, Hochstenbach writes in his book. “It stimulates a worldview in which the home as a financial investment is central.”

While there are also many non-financial arguments in favor of renting. “I don’t want the responsibility of a home at all,” says Maudy Lohaus (34). She did look for a house to buy, but gave up because she found the process tedious and no other house was worth that much money.

Now she rents a spacious apartment in the Statenkwartier in The Hague. “It was completed beautifully, the floors were already in place, everything is neatly finished. The fact that I can leave whenever I want is a great advantage to me. With an owner-occupied home, that is much more hassle.”

“Yes, I rent”, wrote FDeditor Joost van Kuppeveld recently in his column. “Financially perhaps, and monthly payment technically for sure, stupid. […] But I do sleep better. I buy myself a lot of peace with it, as it were. I don’t have to worry about the level of house prices or interest rates, except for their overall effect on the economy.”

Kelly Jayne Vink from Rotterdam can imagine that in a few years she would like to exchange the bustling city center for more peace and quiet. “A detached house in nature. I think it would be great to be able to call the landlord: the roof is leaking, can you do something about it? Renting just suits me very well. I don’t know if I ever want to live in a house for sale again.”

A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of July 18, 2022