Hello World! Welcome Friends! Did you know that around 100 million Americans rent a home?
You might be thinking of getting a rental property, such as an apartment, home or townhouses for rent, but you might not know how much you should spend on rent. Following this, you might be worried about getting ripped off by a greedy landlord.
Read on, and you’ll learn how much of your income should go to rent. If you’re looking to rent your first property, these tips will help you figure out what you should pay.
Let’s begin!
How Much Should You Spend on Rent?
Before we talk about anything else, we should probably discuss what experts think is the correct amount of money you should spend on rent.
Well, for most experts, this figure is around 30% of your total monthly income. So, if you make $3,000 per month, you should spend around $900 per month on rent.
Now, you might be in a position where you can’t afford to spend 30% of your income on rent. Therefore, in the rest of this post, we’re going to explore how you can cut your rent bill, and make things a bit more affordable.
Should You Get Roommates?
If you’re starting out in your career, 30% of your monthly salary might be too much money. That’s because your actual wage might not be that high, and so if you put 30% towards rent, you may not have enough money for everything else.
If you find yourself in this situation, you can reduce your rent bill by living with roommates. Of course, finding good roommates can be challenging, but it’s not an impossible task.
One option is to simply ask friends and family members if they’d like to share a flat with you. In doing so, you might be able to find someone that you already know and trust.
If you don’t have this option, you’ll need to find a flatmate that you have no prior relationship with. If you’re going to do this, you may get a flat first, and then get a roommate later.
When interviewing potential flatmates, you need to vet people as much as possible.
After all, if you pick the wrong flatmate, they might end up causing you a lot of stress. One way you can vet them is by contacting their previous landlord. You might also ask them to provide a reference of some sort.
The other option here is to live with people that are looking for flatmates.
If you do things this way, you still need to consider whether you can live with the people that currently live in the flat. If you feel as though there might be a clash of personalities, you might want to look for another residence.
Should You Change Location?
You may want to move to a particular location, but the properties in that region have really high rental costs. The costs might be so high that a disproportionate amount of your income will be spent on rent if you move to that area.
If that’s the case, you should think about moving to a region that’s just outside of your chosen location. There might be less demand for properties in this other area, and so rental prices will be lower.
Note that if you’re going to adopt this approach, you need to do some math ahead of time, just so that you’re sure things will be cheaper.
For instance, one thing you’ll need to account for is commuting costs. You might experience lower rental prices in this other area, but your commuting costs might be higher too.
Many first time renters aren’t aware of this problem, and so they fail to account for these additional costs. As a result, their monthly expenses increase, even though they’ve moved to a cheaper place.
You should also think about the lifestyle changes you’ll have to make if you move to this other region.
This different region might be further away from your place of work, which could mean that you have to get up earlier. If you don’t like the idea of doing this, it might be better to live somewhere closer to your place of work.
Additionally, this region might not be that close to your friends.
As a result, if you spend time with friends, it might be really late when you get home. If you have to get up early to commute to work, getting home late might mean you don’t get much sleep.
Should You Downsize?
Another question that you should ask yourself is whether or not you can downsize from the property that you are in now. Do you need all of the space that you have got, or can you do without some in order to reduce the amount of rent you pay?
For example, if you are renting a 3 bedroom house, but only two bedrooms are being used and you’ve got huge amounts of space at the front and back, do you actually need that? Or, could you manage with a smaller property?
Some people go through the process to remove a mobile home for free from their land, and then they get matched with people who need them. Mobile homes could be a good thing to look into if you are worried about the price of rent, and don’t mind downsizing.
Should You Buy a Home?
In some cases, buying a home can be a better option than renting a home. That’s because monthly mortgage payments can often be less than rental payments.
Of course, owning a home can come with extra costs, such as insurance bills. But in many cases, a mortgaged home can still be cheaper, even when you account for these extra bills.
Following this, if you want to live in a certain area, for an extended period, buying a home might be a better option.
Now, if you want to be certain, there’s no harm in running the numbers to see how everything pans out. If you do the math, you should be able to determine which option is best for you.
How Much of Your Income Should Go to Rent?
If you’re looking to rent your first property, it can be hard to determine how much of your income should go to rent.
It’s important to remember that rental costs will have a knock-on effect on all your other bills. For instance, if you move to a place that’s far from your place of work, your commuting bills will probably go up too.
Renting your first property can be intimidating, and you might worry about spending too much money on rent. Yet, provided you don’t rush into anything, you should end up with a rental property that’s affordable, and perfect for your needs.
Would you like to read another blog post like this? Check out our blog to see some of our new posts!
Click the links below for any posts you have missed:
Refreshing your Home Room by Room
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Custom Kitchen and Bathroom Renos
Great Information from a Roofing Company
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Toodles,
[…] to write what you think people want to hear, instead of being honest. Of course, you want to rent a room out as soon as possible so that you can start adding to your monthly income. Nevertheless, problems […]