Choices: To rent or to own? Lessons on home ownership in a small town
The choice of living in my neighbourhood has its perks and also its disadvantages. The location advantage is its proximity to the central business district even though it is on the peripheral of the town map (if there is any), the 500m closeness to public schools, public hospital, and the market. This makes the neighbourhood the choicest of locations but the downside of it all is there is insufficient water supply into this area due to its terrain and the robust population this area hosts. When it comes to choosing a place to live, most renters see this area as a means to an end, majorly because rent is cheap and the houses spacious, but water supply? One either has to buy or depend on the rationed water that the homeowner supplies, in the long run, most tenants are just passers-by, renting while scouting for other good places to rent.
By definition, a good neighbourhood has economic, social, physical and environmental opportunities. When either of these factors is compromised, the ‘estate’ loses its taste. From a consultant’s advice, long-term, it is very expensive to rent in this part of town especially for a family size household with regular water consumption of averagely 80 litres per day per person. As much as landlords/ladies could have water storage tanks that harvests the perennial rain, the tanks eventually run dry and they too have to buy water boozers, this cycle is unsustainable which might cause tenants to sometimes buy water from their own pockets due to the rationing by the landlords.
Another advice is that if one already has a home in this neighbourhood, the options are limited and one either invests in huge water reservoirs and harvests water during the rainy season- (the tanks, gutters, pipes and plumbing works are also costly), When rain fails to fall, water boozers come in handy whose source of water is unknown, meaning that, for cooking, drinking and kitchen purposes, one has to buy clean water which goes for around 100 KES per 20 litres. In the long run, water consumption from unknown sources manifests itself through diseases such as dysentery.
Water has been a key point of discussion in my neighbourhood, various complains, campaigns and advocacies to the water and sanitation company responsible, but with time it has become a song and residents have learnt to live without the adequate supply of water and adjusted accordingly.
Before buying land for settling, all factors and costs ought to be considered and it all rolls down to an individual’s preferences as there is no perfect neighborhood. Top of list should be what can one live with or without, sometimes, though unpopular, renting is more practical than owning a home especially if one finds their perfect fit in a neighborhood that they can afford and has all amenities. Either way, renting offers the flexibility to move in case an estate becomes ‘unlivable’ while owning a home offers stability of never having to worry about being homeless. The choice lies in the thoughts of the beholder.
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