Renting an Apartment vs. Owning a Condo

Renting an Apartment vs.
Owning a Condo

Many among us have lived in an apartment at one time or another in their lives. Usually this is due to necessity rather than choice, meaning that very few people ever “dream of moving into an apartment complex”. When living in an apartment you never gain equity because you are simply paying rent – money that goes into the pocket of your landlord. If you’re tired of lining someone else’s pockets with your hard-earned cash, maybe it’s time to look into purchasing your own home. But with that purchase comes the headaches of raking leaves, maintaining the home’s exterior, shoveling or plowing your driveway – things many of us don’t want to do or simply don’t have the time to do. Enter condominium living.

Some people believe that moving from an apartment to a condominium is a lateral move. It is not, for several reasons. When you pay rent, you get nothing but a place to live – nothing else to show for all the money you pay out each month except a roof over your head that your landlord could remove at any time. You have no control, no say in what happens to the unit you’re occupying or to the common grounds area. You wait on the landlord for repairs and, at any given moment, the rent could go up. And if you don’t like it, you’ll have to move…

Owning a condo means the money you pay out goes toward the equity of your purchase – you’re lining your own pockets now. With rents what they currently are, you stand a fairly good chance of ending up paying less each month for your mortgage than you did for your rent. And it’s your home – if you want to paint the living room purple, go ahead, it’s your living room, not the fabled landlord’s. Don’t like the look of the refrigerator? Replace it with one you do like. This is your home to do with as you see fit – no more dictators demanding specific wall colors in order to suit said dictator’s preferences.

Yardwork will be a distant memory when you buy into a condo. Raking, mowing, shoveling, digging, planting, pruning – all things of the past. And when you belong to a condo owner’s association, you’ll have a say in the bylaws and regulations governing the condominium as a whole. No longer will Mr. Landlord make sweeping decisions affecting hundreds of tenants lives; you and your fellow condo owners will now make and vote on the rules. This alone gives condo owners a sense of self-determination, a feeling that they control their own destinies and aren’t under the thumb of a ruthless, uncaring person whose only concern is next month’s rent check.

Moving from an apartment to a condo is far from a lateral move. Ownership carries with it a sense of pride and accomplishment – this is yours and yours alone. Equity is building for your future as opposed to your current landlord’s. And who needs that equity more?

Jim Miller is a full time full service licensed Realtor® in the Southern New Hampshire area with Bean Group and has many years of experience buying and selling New Hampshire Real Estate .

Contact Jim direct at 603-801-3987.

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