Renting is always an option...

I recently received a phone call from a person who carried more than just a hint of bitterness in his voice. Beyond slightly frustrated, he was downright angry about his circumstances. You see, he was tired of renting and wanted to start building equity in his own property. He wanted to help secure the future of his own family, not continue paying the mortgage of his landlord… In regard to his goals, he was not unlike many, many others that I have met and helped throughout my 22 years in the business. The strange thing was, that unlike most people who make this decision happily and with a level of excitement about the next phase of their lives and of the prospect of future home ownership, this gentleman had such an edge about him. It was only after continuing the conversation that the reason for his angst became evident.

In further discussion, I discovered that he had been renting the same house for nearly 10 years. This fact in-andof-itself made him a bit of an outlier… He shared with me that the family had always been very happy in the home and that he had even considered trying to buy it from his landlord instead of looking for another home to purchase. His problem however, was twofold. The first of which being the fact that his ability to save money for a down payment and to qualify for the necessary financing had been continually surpassed by the rapid escalation of the market. During his tenure as a tenant, the price of real estate had gone from affordable to basically unattainable for him. Prices were now at a point where he felt as though he could simply no longer afford to purchase.

The second issue – and that which much of his anger stemmed from, was the fact that the rent payments he had made to his landlord had totaled more than $90,000 during the time that the family had occupied the home. The fact that prices had reached a level in which he could no longer buy left him feeling like his opportunity had been missed. That he had spent nearly $100,000 in rent in the process was just salt in the wound…

Dan Bosch is a Realtor Associate with RE/MAX of Chico and the team leader for the Premier Professionals Real Estate Team... Dan specializes in residential and investment properties. He can be reached at (530) 896-9330 or via email at danbosch@sbcglobal.net. You can visit his website www.premierteamchico.com and follow him at www.facebook.com premierteamchico or on Instagram @dan_bosch