Buying versus Renting

Whitney Gregoire’s first post!

Hello everyone, I finally made it, I’m a Realtor! I want to thank Linda Rossi and my mother Dianne Gregoire for providing me with this wonderful opportunity to blog about real estate. I am excited to dive into the profession and look at some amazing houses!

Being a new Realtor in the business means that I have a lot of learning to do (thankfully my Mom is a pro), but perhaps my learning can also be your learning as you follow our blog.

So I wish to share about my very first request from my friends when I finally got my license activated with Oregon First, and that is:

“Now do you only sell houses for sale or can you show people rental houses as well?”

A lot of my good friends are around my age (25-30) and are just getting a handle on their career path and direction in life. Moving into a new home is a grand venture and requires a lot of motivation in your invested self as well as the aptitude of your wallet. So a lot of them are renters. Really this question is more along the lines of: You are ready to move into a new home, do you buy or do you rent?
First off as a real estate broker I can only sell property under the supervision of my principle broker Mickey Lindsey, and not manage rental properties for an owner. So my license does not cover managing rental properties. I can however sell a property to somebody looking to buy who intends on keeping it, as property that they rent out themselves. Unfortunately, even if I help a friend look on-line for a property for rent and send them to a property manager I do not collect a commission. So as you can see there isn’t any motive to help somebody find a rental property for an Oregon broker.

With that said there are pros and cons for renting versus buying that I can touch upon:

Renting:
Renting a home provides for convenience of location while at the same time being affordable. Most often it is your property manager’s responsibility to maintain the general up-keep of the residence, and in some cases they pay the property tax. It’s nice if your income is a bit stretched and you really want to live in certain areas due to work or school. It can however be difficult to be a renter as property managers must enter your home from time to time to maintain the general up-keep (not without giving you twenty-four hours notice of course). And if you break your rental agreement by buying a dog in a dog-free complex you risk termination of the contract which may lead to eviction. So really you do not actually own the property and must live by somebody else’s rules. Then again you are also free of the responsibility of the physical integrity of the property, which is what deposits are for; in case you cause any considerable damage to the home that must be repaired when you move out. You are living in somebody else’s investment.

Buying:

Buying a home is expensive, and keeping up on taxes and liens on the property can be a bit stressful at times. However, there is nothing greater than knowing that you are the owner. Buying a property can be a great investment: as once you pay off the initial mortgage on the property that land becomes yours, and if you sell it you get money (after taxes of course). You can invest in your property however you see fit: You can rent it out to others for monetary gain, you can build a shop on it to support your own business or hobbies, and you can play on it and paint the walls of your house any color you desire. Or just simply live on it. Buying a property means that you are providing yourself with an investment that adds to your personal assets and worth. And isn’t it worth living it for you? I guess I’m bias, being a broker and all.

So all in all I only do the selling of property thing, and I do not deal with rental property. However, if any of you have any questions about rental property or would like to rent feel free to search on the web for your desired location to live in, and contact the property manager of any property that you might find. Have a chat with them and ask them about what they have to offer and/or how it works, because licensed property managers will know more about rental property than I do.

Thank you for reading! If you are at all interested in watching my experience of being a new Realtor unfold then feel free to follow me on facebook!
https://www.facebook.com/whitney.gregoire.9

Thank you all,
Whitney Gregoire
(503) 778-0644