Ashton Pointe Blog

Many people are told when they are younger that renting is only for college graduates or people who cannot afford to buy.  Many parents hammer these ideas into their children and tell them that renting is equivalent to throwing money away every month.  Fortunately, today people are beginning to finally think for themselves and challenge these ideas.  Here are 4 reasons to pat yourself on the back for deciding to rent an apartment in Beaufort, SC at an HHHunt Community!
 
1.  Renting can save money

At the very minimum you’ll be shelling out PITI for your home. That is:

• Principal
• Interest
• Tax
• Insurance

The PITI doesn’t include property maintenance like maintaining the yard, paint, plumbing, repairs, decorating, etc… When you rent an apartment in Beaufort at an HHHunt community, the monthly payment is almost always quite a bit less than the PITI in your area and there are no maintenance expenses!

2. Homeowners’ tax deductions are overstated

According to research quoted by MSN, “… half of homeowners don’t get a break, because even with mortgage interest and property taxes, their total deductions do not exceed the standard federal tax deduction ($11,900 for couples and $5,450 for singles)”.

For these folks, it’s like spending $100 to save $20. They’re better off saving the difference and investing it.   Even if there is a “break” on your taxes, you typically had to spend more than you would have spent to rent to get back that $20 for every $100 spent in interest payments.

3. Renting gives you flexibility

For the up and coming young professional, you’re better off renting and saving for a few years than to buy a small condo. Who knows how fast you will outgrow it?  When you own a home, you can’t always sell it when you need to sell it at the price you want to sell it in order to accept a new employment opportunity.  If you have owned a home and don’t want the constant maintenance responsibility, renting gives you the opportunity to enjoy your weekends instead of completing that “to do” list.

4.  Our superb service teams!

Most apartment communities offer 24 hour emergency maintenance and technicians who are skilled in HVAC, plumbing, and electrical.  At an HHHunt Community, our service teams take great pride in offering prompt and professional service to you.  Whether you need a light bulb changed or a new compressor for your AC unit, we are there to take care of you as fast and efficient as possible.  We are always a phone call or email away and most service requests are performed on the same day or within 24 hours!

Halloween has passed and the weather is starting to cool. Fall is here. Ashton Pointe, apartments in Beaufort, SC has some great ideas for art projects to do with the kids this fall. Decorate your apartment homes and entry doors with some of these great ideas.

Leaf rubbing - What you will need:

Real leaves
Thick white paper
Crayons
Oil paints

Have your children position and reposition leaves under the paper while rubbing over the paper with force enough to make the leaf details appear on the paper. As they change colors and leaf types, a blanket of fall leaves emerges. The resulting artwork serves as an independent piece of art or as the background for a marker drawing, piece of writing or a collage.

Fall Wreath - What you will need:

Bag to collect things from nature
Paper plate
Scissor
Markers
Ribbons
Glue

Take your children on a nature walk, where they can collect various items — twigs, leaves, acorns and berries. There are gorgeous places to walk in and around Beaufort. Have them cut out the center of a paper plate and use fall-colored crayons to color the remaining circle. They can then glue the nature items they have collected onto their paper plates, creating a wreath. Decorate the wreath further by attaching a decorative ribbon or sea shells to the paper plate as well.

Lady bug pumpkin - What you will need:

1 small pumpkin
Old newspaper
Red spray paint
2 large googely eyes
2 black pipe cleaners
25 mini black pom-poms
2 mini red pom-poms
Glue
Black magic marker

Place your pumpkin on top of the newspaper. Help your child spray paint the whole pumpkin red. Let it dry. Glue on the eyes and pom-poms. Draw a mouth and wrap the black pipe cleaners around the stem (attach two of the red pom-poms with glue to the end of the black pipe cleaners). All done. Easy and adorable!

We can’t wait to see your creations around Ashton Pointe.

When deciding whether to rent or buy, you are making the choice to rent an apartment home or renting the capital needed to buy a home. Most Americans don't consider that they are renting equity (from the bank) to buy a home. As you are aware, very little equity is built in the first few years of paying a mortgage. Many people are surprisingly still very unaware of this fact.

This following article explains how renting is financially better than buying in about 75% of cases!

For the Past 30 Years, Renting Was Generally Better Than Buying

If homeownership is the American dream, then the nation had better wake up. That's the message from a new research paper that examines whether buying or renting a home was a better financial decision over the past 30 years. Most would find the result surprising: over the period Americans were better off renting between 65% and 75% of the time, depending on the investment alternative.

The article essentially looks at eight-year periods and assumes that a person invests the money he or she saves by renting. Since buying is generally more expensive than renting, renters have extra money to invest. It also makes a number of assumptions favorable to homeownership, including gains from the mortgage interest tax deduction, the option to refinance, and the ability to walk away -- loss-free -- from an underwater mortgage. Still, renting wins approximately three-quarters of the time.

The staff at economic research organization e21 explains why this result actually shouldn't be so shocking:

Counter-intuitive as the finding may be to some, it is actually quite logical. Unless someone possesses the cash necessary to buy a residence, he or she will be renting one way or another. The choice is between renting the property directly or instead renting the capital necessary to buy the property. The amount of capital to be rented is a function of house prices, while the bulk of a mortgage payment is interest, which is the rental payment on this capital. After 2 years, the typical 30-year amortizing mortgage balance has been reduced by less than 3%. This means that a household that took out a $300,000 mortgage with a 5% interest rate to buy a home has only reduced its mortgage balance by $8,600 after two years despite spending nearly $39,000 in total over this period.

Housing advocates may respond by pointing out that at least the $8,600 in this scenario went towards home equity rather than simply being squandered on rent. But, as demonstrated in the Real Estate Economics article, the principal component of each mortgage payment - i.e. the portion of the mortgage payment that goes towards reducing the principal mortgage balance instead of interest - is an added expense renters don't have.

This turns the real estate industry's biggest talking point on its head: you aren't throwing rent into the wind each month, you're casting away equity.

Of course, that equity also provides a potential benefit. The analysis's eight-year rolling methodology appears to miss the biggest reward of owning a home: living rent-free once the home is paid off. After that 30-years is up, the longer a family remains in that home rent-free, the more buying pays off. Taking this into account would almost certainly change the result in some, if not all situations. Renting may be a better option initially, but there's no eventual reward.

An important point still needs to be made here: buying a home that you don't plan to live in for an extended period of time probably isn't a great idea. The rent you pay in the form of interest on a 30-year loan for five or even 10 years won't be any better than if you had just rented outright. But if you're planning on living in a home for 30-plus years, then you could potentially get some benefit from buying rather than renting.

Original article by By Daniel Indiviglio, The Atlantic