To Rent or To Buy a House? A Global View

To Rent or To Buy a House? A Global View

Shelter is a basic need for mankind, irrespective of what form. But, as humans, we look for something concrete and strong. This again is classified into rental, lease, buying or possessing of the asset, also considered as an essential component of investment. Buying a house is a big question, and people stand with different perspectives across the globe. Some of these facts about renting or buying have been analyzed, one of them being confidence in the investment on both the landlord and the tenans's side.

Wouldn’t it be great, as a tenant, to get all the details about your landlord, the house you want to rent or buy, the location, and browse all other aspects while staying at your home or office, with a laptop or tablet in front of you? www.rateyourflat.com is a social website that hosts to all these details on its pages.

All over the world, a confluence of factors drove the increase of the renters share of households: the recession at the end of the 2000s and its related wave of unemployment, that put more pressure on the household budget and discouraged new buyers; the high number of foreclosures that displaced millions of owners; the risks associated to ownership with decreasing house value. On top of that, the new generations are starting to realize that renting means ease of moving within or outside their country, and less responsibility for maintenance. All these considarations translate into real numbers. When looking at Europe, in the last few years the average of renters rose above 30 percent of the population, with peaks in Germany and France of more than 50 percent (source: Wikipedia). In North America, this percentage climbed from 31 percent of 2004 to 35 percent in 2012, with 43 million renters at the beginning of 2013 (source: harvard.edu).

The significant decrease of renters income in the last few years and the failure of assistance efforts are creating more tension in the rental market, where tenants in need cannot afford to be as demanding as they were in the past. The risk associated to this situation is an increase in speculation and the surrender of the “decent and affordable housing” claim.

In this scenario, sharing knowledge is a way to counterbalance this tendency: the web, in many situations, helped customers of almost any business to get the best deal, avoid bad bargains and reward virtuous merchants. Being the rental of a house no different than any other owner/customer relationship, www.rateyourflat.com has the purpose to represent the first platform for tenants worldwide to review the premises they are living in and build a history that would not disappear into thin air with their departure. After all, many countries already have “tenant watch” websites, where landlords can report bad occupants, often exposing names and other private details.

Every review on rateyourflat.com has to pass a manual check for its contents, under a strict privacy policy and usage regulations, and the landlord can reply to any review or report a violation to be investigated. The website is totally free and funded by donations on the website itself and temporarily on indiegogo.com.

Log in to www.rateyourflat.com – if you are already a tenant, and then post your reviews of the existing apartment or house. If you are the owner, good news: with the next website upgrade, you will be able to give your house details for renting or easy locating. And if you are a person in search of one of these, then this is the right place you have reached.

ENDS

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