Submitted by Henderson Properties, Charlotte, NC  704-544-0253  www.HendersonHomesCharlotte.com

The real estate market has left many wondering whether to rent or to buy? With the stalled economy, expiration of homebuyer tax credits, marked-down home prices and high unemployment, it may be the best time to rent.

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Renting is not the same as buying.  When you rent, you are basically paying for the use of someone else’s property for a period of time.  Renting a home, condominium or apartment can give you the ability to save money while enjoying amenities that just might not be feasible if you owned your own home, workout facilities, swimming pool, recreation facilities, security on site, etc.        

When you’re looking for a rental home, you don’t have to find your dream home.  Look for the property that is going to meet your basic needs for space and budget. 

In the beginning, your monthly rent will be lower than a monthly mortgage payment for the same home. A typical mortgage loan includes much of the interest payments at the beginning of the loan and less by the end of the loan. If you are renting, you can view it as simply paying the principal. For the most part rent on an apartment is significantly cheaper than a house payment as well as the appropriate homeowners insurance payments. Renter’s insurance is usually much cheaper than homeowners insurance, typically up to 80-90% less expensive. With renting, you don’t have property taxes, fees for homeowners associations or all sorts of utilities.

One of the major advantages to renting a home is you don’t have to think about managing the grounds, doing repairs, maintaining appliances or fixing the roof.

“The tenant needs to read their lease carefully to understand what repairs they are responsible for and what repairs the landlord is responsible for.  Also, not all leases are the same, read them and ask the landlord questions upfront before signing,” said Ben Kincel, Broker NC and SC, Rental Property Management Supervisor for Henderson Properties.

Renting keeps you very flexible in your lifestyle. If you are looking for a job, you’re not limited by how close the job is to your home because you can just move to an apartment or rental home closer to work.  If you are young and think your personal or professional situation may change within the next five or ten years, it is more advantageous to rent.

While renting, you can continue to save for a down payment on a house. If you rent for five years and invest your savings in slightly longer investments like CD accounts, you can have quite the nest egg when you are ready to buy. The ability to save a large amount of money to be used as a down payment on your dream home is ideal, because the more money that you use as a down payment the less you will need to finance, so again you could be saving a bunch over the years of mortgage payments.

With regards to rent to own, there is no “standard” lease purchase contract that a Real Estate Broker can simply fill in for you. It must be on a case-by-case basis and drafted by an attorney based on the agreed upon terms, which is an additional expense.

Read the whole lease and be sure you understand it before signing it.  Be clear about the move-in and move-out process including your security deposit.  Find out who handles the repairs and what are you responsible for as a tenant.  When is the rent considered late and is there a late fee?

For more information on renting, You can check out Trulia’s latest rent-vs.-buy index, which tracks 50 of the country’s largest markets. The firm calculates the price-to-rent ratio by comparing the average listing price of a condo or townhome with the average rental rate of two-bedroom apartments and condos on Trulia. Basically, the calculation takes the median price of the condo in a market and divides it by the annual rental payments generated on a similar property.