Deciding to Rent or Purchase a Home: Some Tips for Making Your Decision

When deciding to rent a home rather than buy a home there are many things to consider. You will need to know if you plan on staying in the home for a short or long period of time. You will also have to weigh the risks and benefits of purchasing or renting.

When my husband and I were transferred to a new location due to being in the military, we were overwhelmed with emotions. We did not want to leave our first home that we bought but we were excited about exploring a completely new place. We were also scared because the housing market went from a seller's market to a buyer's market in a short three years.

A seller's market is when it is easy for someone to sell their home because there are more buyers than sellers and the cost of houses are low or mortgage rates are low. A buyer's market is when it is easy for buyers to find a home because there are many available but the prices have gone up.

We were lucky though and were able to sell our home within three months of it being on the market. The next question on our minds was whether we wanted to buy another house or rent. We knew that we were buying in a buyer's market, which means that if we wanted to buy a house that was comparable to the one that we had we would have had to pay more. We also were considering that the market might not go in our favor once we decide to sell again, which may be in the next three years. All of these worries led us to the decision to rent a home.

Renting a home seemed like the perfect decision for us. We did not have to pay closing costs on a new home, we did not have to buy a home that was more expensive than the one we had before meaning a higher mortgage and we did not have to worry about household maintenance such as a broken water heater.

Therefore, once we decided on renting a home we searched the internet for homes for rent in the area that we were moving. The first thing we did was look over the area and see how far different cities and towns were from the base that my husband works.

Then we searched for any information we could find on each area. We found that one area not a very safe so we immediately stopped looking there. Then we found areas that were very high priced so we crossed those places off our list too.

Once we got a list of the towns and cities we were willing to live in we searched some websites that focus on homes for rent. Some of the sites we searched were,

The problem with our situation was that we lived far away from where we were going to be living, so we could not jump on houses as they came up. We ended up having to make a trip to the new location for a week so that we could see homes as they came up for rent and then secure it before anyone else could.

Before making our trip, we looked up all the realtors in the area and called them to see if they listed homes for rent. If they did, we would ask what they had available and let them know we were looking. A couple of days before we left for our trip we called each place that did list homes for rent and asked to set up an appointments to view the available homes.

The first day, we had three appointments to see houses. The second house we saw, we loved and signed the lease that evening. We spent the rest of the week getting to know the place that we now call, "home".

Finding a rental home is possible but it does take some legwork. First, you will need to find the areas you want to live in by talking to people and visiting internet sites, then search for those areas on home rental sites, call local realtors, plan to visit the area and look at houses while there. If you follow these steps, you will find your future rental home.Rent.com, Home Rental Ads, Homes for Rent.

There are also websites especially for each state or city that list homes for rent so try searching for that as well. I also found some homes for rent on Craigslist. It is important to search all these sites everyday, multiple times a day if you live in the area you are interested in renting because many rental homes do not last long.