Why We’re Still Renting After Having Kids

“You’re only renting because you don’t have kids.”

“Your lifestyle doesn’t work for families.”

“You’ll change your tune when you have a baby.”

We’ve been hearing variations of these from friends and family every time we tell them we’re still renting even after 10 years into our early retirement adventure. For the longest time, there was this perception that our nomadic lives only made sense because we didn’t have children and were, therefore, irresponsible and selfish. We’d have to smarten up and settle down, they assured us, if we ever had a kid.

Well, now we have one, and it’s been over a year. We are no longer a carefree couple with no responsibilities. We now have to care about pediatrician appointments and school districts, and proximity to playgrounds, which is something we never even thought about before.

So has this changed our perspective? Has the nesting instinct hit us? Did Little Matchstick turn us into Home Boners?

Surprisingly, no! If anything, becoming parents has convinced us even more about the wisdom of renting versus owning.

How is that possible? Well…

Homes Are High Maintenance

We have never owned real estate directly ourselves, but everyone we talk to about it tells us one thing repeatedly: It’s a lot of work.

Not only do you have to keep it clean and tidy, you’re responsible for mowing the lawn, keeping your hedges trimmed, keeping the deck from rotting, fixing your fence. The list goes on and on, and if you step just a little out of line with your grass cutting, some annoying busybody from the neighbourhood HOA is always watching, watching and waiting to make trouble for you.

And that’s just normal maintenance. If something goes wrong, like a pipe burst or the roof starts leaking, there’s no landlord to call and complain. It’s your problem, and these issues can’t be ignored, delayed, or deferred because if you do, they just get worse and more difficult to fix later.

Don’t get me wrong, if you’re super handy around the house like Mr. Money Mustache and genuinely enjoy swinging hammers and breaking out the circular saw, great! You should definitely own, because you’re probably going to do a great job keeping the place in tip-top shape.

FIRECracker and I are not one of those people. A home shouldn’t be a project, it should be a place to hang your hat so that you can spend your life energy on things that actually interest you, like raising your rambunctious and curious toddler, or writing books.

Price Stability

Stability is the siren call of every homeowner justifying their decision to buy. Owning, they reason, means you never have to deal with an annoying landlord. It means you never have to worry about being evicted if your landlord decides to sell. And stability is critical to the emotional development of a baby, right?

I actually agree that stability is important, but not the kind of stability that home owners usually think about, because renting gives me the stability that I really crave…price stability.

Owning real estate may give people stability in terms of physical location, in that you can live at that location for as long as you want and (generally) you can’t be kicked out of it, but for finance nerds like us, all I see when it comes to owning real estate is risk.

There’s the risk that your mortgage payment can unexpectedly change, something the Americans were shocked to discover can happen in 2008, and Canadians are now realizing as mortgages are being renewed at rates far greater than when they signed their purchase agreements. There’s the risk that a pipe bursts, or a crack appears in the foundation, which can set you back tens of thousands of dollars in repair costs. There’s the risk that the city can increase their property tax assessments, putting you on the hook for increased tax bills. The list goes on and on.

When you rent, your living costs are fixed to basically one number: your monthly rent. And many cities have rules that limit how much a landlord can increase their rent each year. Property taxes may still increase, costly repairs can still happen, but that’s your landlord’s problem, not the tenant’s.

This makes budgeting far easier, because I have much more certainty over my monthly spending. This makes it easier to save money and grow our portfolio, since what I project at the beginning of the year tends to actually come true at the end of it.

Having a baby makes this price stability even more important, since kids are a source of price instability all on their own. The baby won’t latch properly? Guess we’re buying hundreds of dollars of formula now until that gets fixed. The baby going through a growth spurt and just ate an entire weeks of baby food all at once? Well, guess what’s happening to your food budget! The baby needs extra vaccinations that your insurance doesn’t cover? Guess who’s paying for that out-of-pocket!

All this stuff happened to us, and from talking to other parents, these are very common baby-related expenses that happen randomly. And since we’re both first time parents, we didn’t know what we didn’t know and couldn’t budget for any of them.

The saving grace is that while these baby-related expenses can add up, the financial damage that adds up tends to be in the range of hundreds of dollars, not tens of thousands like real estate.

If FIRECracker and I were dealing with all this baby-related firefighting, and then our pipe burst in the middle of the night, I’m honestly not sure how we would deal with it.

So grateful to be renters.

It’s Harder To Travel

OK this one is totally a FIRECracker and Wanderer thing, but owning/renting is a personal choice, so this factors into our decision.

We love to travel. Little Matchstick has been to seven countries already, and he isn’t even two yet! While I wouldn’t say that we subscribe to a specific parenting philosophy, travelling with LMS and exposing him to as many different languages, cultures, and ways of life is a priority for us.

Which begs the question, what should we do with our place while we’re gone?

Keeping our rent low makes this decision a lot easier. Right now, we’re paying $1600 a month, and if we need to leave the place empty for a month or two, that’s not going to break the bank versus a mortgage payment that’s double or triple that.

Plus, it’s a lot easier to share our place with other travellers using platforms like HomeExchange if our place is a small (but comfy) apartment located in a city centre rather than a house out in the suburbs. There are a lot more single travellers and couples that we can swap with.

Another unexpected benefit of renting is that ironically, the law tends to be more on your side when it comes to sharing platforms. We could theoretically own a condo in the middle of the city, but the way the laws are writing in Ontario, Canada, condo boards wield a surprising amount of power over what you can and can’t do with your property. If the condo board decides to ban overnight guests, or sharing platforms like AirBnb and HomeExchange, they’re perfectly in their right to do so. And if you get caught violating their rules, they can fine you and put a lien on your property. This, despite the fact that you supposedly “own” your place. Who owns who here?

Rental laws here, on the other hand, are far more advantageous to the renter. Even if it’s written on your lease that you can’t share your place, the laws of the city where you live override that.

To be fair, we always give our landlord a heads up when someone stays in our place while we travel because we want to be good tenants and maintain a good relationship with them, and we limit the turnover by only having long term home exchangers a few times a year.

Owning gives you more control over certain things, but ironically less control over others.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, being on Team Rent or Team Own is a personal decision, and the right answer for one may not be the right answer for another. It all depends on your values.

FIRECracker and I value money and freedom, specifically freedom to travel with Little Matchstick as much as possible. They say becoming a parent changes your priorities, but even after having him, we’ve found these core values haven’t changed. In fact, if anything they’ve become even stronger.

So, for the three of us, we are firmly on the side of Team Rent for the forseeable future.

How about you? Are you on Team Rent or Team Own, and why? Let’s hear it in the comments below!

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