Everyone dreams of owning their own home, mainly because most people realize that renting or leasing is just wasting money and if you buy your own house at least your payments are going towards something you own. There are also those that prefer renting, leasing, or even buying a condo because they do not want to be bothered with the time and effort that goes into owning their own home. When you rent, lease, or even buy a condo you have no worries because your landlord or maintenance man will take care of the upkeep of the house both inside and out, when you own a home this is not the case, so you either need to be very handy or have to be willing to pay a lot of money to have things taken care of properly. Many people jump into home ownership not considering this, and one question everyone should ask before buying a home is if they have the time and know how to take care of house maintenance, or if they have the money to be able to hire the right people when something does go wrong. Below are pros and cons to home ownership, hopefully these will help the indecisive make up their minds.

Pros

• Investment The money spent on your mortgage is an investment and goes towards something you own, rather than money that is put into renting a place that you will never own and never be able to get the money back from. You are building equity on your own home, and it may appreciate or depreciate in value depending on how you take care of it.
• Privacy Owning your own home gives you more privacy than you would find at most rental/leased properties.
• Freedom Owning a home gives you more freedom to do what you want; this includes the design and layout right down to the colors of paint you use and the entire landscaping etc.
• Peace of Mind Knowing that you don’t have to rely on someone else to do a job, when renting you may have to wait if your landlord or maintenance man is busy. You still have to hire someone to fix things if you cannot do so on your own, but you can decide who and there are many people available for any job so usually you can hire someone quickly.
• Taxes – Another pro is that you can write off certain expenses related to your home, especially in the current economy. The interest you pay on your house every year is also tax deductible and there are many more things you can write off with itemized deductions.

Cons

• Problems When something goes wrong you are responsible for getting it fixed, whether you do it yourself or hire someone it is all on you. There are many things that can go wrong if you don’t fix problems asap. Not taking care of something may depreciate the value of your house.
• Cash Flow If you can’t do something yourself be prepared to possibly shell out a lot of cash to have something fixed, the most expensive things are the mechanics of the house (furnace, electrical boxes etc.), the roof, and the foundation.
• Nothing is certain Another problem in buying a house is you do not know what the future holds, even if you take care of your house the value can still drop if the neighborhood suddenly goes downhill, so where you buy is also something to consider. Once you buy the house it is out of your hands if something like that happens.
• Flexibility – When you own your own house it is not as easy to just pick up and move, so if you decide suddenly you want to move to a different state for a job or to be closer to famil then you have to first sell your house, when you rent or lease you can move at any time and there is no hassle or waiting involved.
• Higher payments – When you buy a house more than likely your mortgage will be higher than your rent would be if you continued to rent. So you want to make sure you have job security and good health when buying a home, because if you cannot make your payments the bank will take the house back without a second thought.

So before you buy your first home consider some of these things. Do the pros outweigh the cons or vice versa? Ask yourself these things and do what is best for you. There are many people that love home ownership and then there are just as many people that would rather not deal with the hassle and decide to rent or lease for life.

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