Is renting a viable lifestyle option? - Christopher Zinn

As house prices continue to rise across Australia & the idea of owning your own home becomes a pipe dream, renting is quickly becoming the norm. But is renting a viable lifestyle option? Christopher Zinn, Consumer Campaigner at Life Sherpa says it can be but it needs a well considered plan.

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About Christopher Zinn

Christopher Zinn is a consumer campaigner at Life Sherpa, Australia’s first online financial advice provider. Christopher’s work at Life Sherpa is about replacing the myths and mysteries we can all feel around money with more constructive beliefs.

What we discussed in this episode

1:20 - Introducing Christopher Zinn

2:32 - Christopher talks about how we’re all consumers and how the consumer is the most important person in the party whether it’s a renter or a house buyer.

The consumer is the basic driver of so much of our economy and they need to be recognised as such and that could be a renter or a house buyer.

3:17 - One of the first things we did when starting out was renting a home. 

4:30 - Your rental is your home.  

5:00 - How can we negotiate a long term lease in Australia?

7:19 - Can renting be a viable financial way to live?

7:38 - Last year rents went up 8.2% and regional areas went up, no longer being able to provide a refuge for cheaper rents.

8:25 - In the short to medium term is can actually be cheaper to rent than to buy.

Buying comes with considerable costs up front, and you have to maintain it. It does all add up. Whereas with renting you pay the rent and that’s it.

9:47 - How to create a plan to financially benefit from renting.

12:46 - Pros and cons of rent-vesting. 

15:05 - The future of housing and how it might change with more and more people working from home.

19:08 - With more people working from home and using their spare room as an office, it can have an impact on the available occupancy rates for tenants looking for somewhere to live. 

20:16 - If you’re working from home there should be some compensation for the additional costs.

23:45 - We need to remove the stigma around renting.

If you make the right kind of investment with the money you save in renting, then the savvy renter can do as well as the householder.

24:20 - Renting has got to be more viable because for some people there will literally be no choice. We have to have some tenancy reform. 

26:13 - We don’t hear the good stories about good tenants and landlords. Only the horror stories on the news.

27:40 - Our rental payments should become part of our credit history. 

28:43 - How to connect with Christopher Zinn (Links below)

30:16 - Next week's guest – Lara Shannon, host of Channel 10's 'Pooches at Play'.  be talking about how to rent with pets.