Buying your own home can be expensive but could save you money over the years. Renting offers less freedom to live by your own rules but more flexibility if you need to move. Here are the benefits of each and how to decide whether to rent or buy.

Whether you rent or buy depends on your financial situation, like how you’d like to manage your savings, if you have an emergency fund, and whether you’d rather try to fix your broken toilet yourself or just complain to your superintendent.

It’s also a decision that’s harder and harder to make for young people, as financial inequality leads more young people to simply live with their parents, and to put off buying a home until later in their lives.

Check out our handy chart, first put together by Business Insider, that factors in all the major decisions you need to make when choosing whether you are renting or buying a home.

The post Here’s a handy flowchart that’ll tell you if it’s better to rent or buy a home appeared first on Elite Estates & Lettings.

House prices have picked up speed for the first time since March, but will slow in the next year as the market loses momentum.

Halifax’s price index recorded a 6pc annual increase in house prices in the three months to November, up from last month’s figure of 5.2pc. Home prices increased by just 0.2pc month-on-month, and the average UK house price is now £218,000.

Despite the slight increase in growth Hansen Lu, an analyst at Capital Economics, said that the market “is still losing momentum”. He said: “With house prices very high and some buyers still cautious following the Brexit vote, we expect the slowdown to be extended well into next year.”

He added that affordability is stretched, and potential homebuyers’ “ability to borrow more to bid up home prices is becoming increasingly constrained”.

Howard Archer, an analyst at IHS Global Insight, said that home prices look likely to rise modestly in the near term, but will slow down at the end of next year to around 2pc.

He added: “We believe the fundamentals for home buyers will progressively deteriorate during 2017 with consumers’ purchasing power weakening markedly and the labour market likely softening.”

He said that the low supply of homes for sale, as reported by the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, means that any softening in house prices would be limited.

House prices picked up pace in November and will keep rising in the months ahead, but a slowdown in activity next year will hurt the economy, according to the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (Rics).

Looking ahead, 14 per cent expected prices to increase in the next three months, while 40 per cent predicted rises over the next year, “except in London, where the long-term outlook is much weaker”.

These figures tie in with a Halifax report this week showing annual house price increases picking up pace last month and a Reuters [2] poll of experts by Reuters that predicted growth of two per cent next year.

See properties for sale from Elite Estates

The post House prices rise for first time since March appeared first on Elite Estates & Lettings.