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I'm curious what percentage of daycare providers rent vs own their homes. To maintain privacy, since you may not want others to know, I'm posting a poll. Mortgage payments are generally lower than rent for the same place, and rent means you need to make sure the owner will allow use of the home for daycare, but each has its own advantages.
We own and are mortgage free but I am trying to convince my other half that we should move. It's not looking like I will need to pack anytime soon ;) lol
As a home owner I'd love to hear what the advantages are to renting? Interesting to get a different perspective :)
I own, but am not mortgage free like you 5 Little Monkeys. That must be such a wonderful feeling.
I know when I did rent things I enjoyed was the maintenance and upkeep was always someone else's responsibility. It was less expensive for things like heat and hydro. And if I ever needed to move it was easier to just let a lease run out than to go through the entire process of selling and buying a home.
Despite those conveniences I don't miss renting now that I have my own place....especially now that I have a yard to garden in and for the kids to play in.
I'm not talking about he benefits of renting from a personal standpoint as such Mamaduck, I mean pertaining to running a daycare. I would imagine running a daycare from a rental property could potentially be met with problems. I had a friend who did daycare and her townhouse on the complex was bought out by a new property management company who changed the terms of the rental saying that nobody could run a business from home. She had to move to be able to carry on...that is a major problem, not minor at all. Also where I live now rentals are extremely rare, literally in a town of 30,000 there are never more than 5 houses up for rent...and that's if you are lucky. There is a high chance then that if your lease was up and your landlord/lady decided not to renew to sell for example, then you are high risk of not relocating to an area which works for your dcparents and so you would lose income. To much of a big risk in my mind
Mama_duck, yes it is a nice feeling. I went from renting on my own to moving in with my bf at the time (fiance now) and I have to admit, I had no hand in being mortgage free! He did it all on his own at an early age. The home we have now is perfect for us and daycare but it will be a tight squeeze if we have our own child(ren). That is the reason I want to move but he doesn't want to go back to having a mortgage and I can't say I blame him!! So for now, we will stay put. With me not having a steady income a mortgage could be stressful and I enjoy my job too much to give it up for a more steady one.
I am curious to how renting and running a hdc works as well. I know here there are a few who don't like to rent to kids (so I hear, even tho it is illegal to say so) and can't imagine what they would think of a daycare lol. If you rent an apartment or a duplex, do you worry about the noise the children make? I do miss renting in regard to if something was broken someone else fixed it!! lol
Bright Sparks: That is a huge risk for sure!
5 Little Monkeys: It's great that you've found a profession you really love. There aren't many people in the world who are lucky enough to work jobs they truly enjoy.
Some advantages of renting are:
- less maintenance
- easier to move if needed
- much less upfront cost (main reason I have to start that way)
Some disadvantages:
- generally higher monthly rate
- less control
- risk of having to shut down or move
I would definitely not suggest renting an apartment for daycare. Right now, I'm looking for houses. Right now I'm browsing and will be seriously looking in about 3 weeks. That will be my main deciding factor in opening up or not. If nobody wants to rent a house to be used for daycare, it won't happen, but since I currently do home renovations, I can tell them that if any repairs are needed, daycare related or not, I can do them myself. That should help.
I had a friend do daycare out of a rental and her landlord limited the amount of kids she could have, to limit the amount of traffic coming and going obviously to avoid neighbour complaints and she was not allowed to decorate her daycare room without a hefty $1000 deposit to cover repainting and possible drywall repairs from all the sticky tack, staples, tape or any other wall fixtures and also if they did a crappy paint job or bright colours that needed painting over for new tenants. I think the pros for a rental are different if you are just looking at living there as a family versus running a daycare business. Also at any given time after being okay with a daycare, your landlord may suddenly change his mind and then you are left in an awkward situation.
With reference to what you are saying in the post above Mike, I think that this isn't necessarily a given in a rental property. less maintenance for example. Your landlord is supposed to keep the property well maintained and in a good state of repair, but what is classed as "satisfactory" by law may not also be the best environment for children. A landlord may fix something so it is adequate but not necessairily pleasing to daycare parents. Obviously not all landlords are an issue but there are plenty who do the bare minimum to meet their requirements as a landlord. Wouldn't it be best to be responsible for the maintenance yourself and know that they are 100% accurate and safe? Even if you eventually get things done by your landlord, you can not know or control his speed and accuracy. Those kinds of issues could lose you families and make it challenging to get new parents if they are dragging their feet and taking their sweet time doing things that to a daycare business are of top priority. The risk of having to shut down or move as you put it is a huge risk factor to me. If our professions earnings werent unstable enough this is the icing on the cake and if you move you have no guarantee that these families will move with you if you are in a competative location or it will add to their commute time. Yes I am coming across as a bit of a pesamist but I look at things objectively and from a worst case scenario, after all this is a business decision and in an industry which can be unpredictable and even more uncertain times are ahead of us with the new legislation which will be upon us in the not to distant future so I would want to be sure I was getting into things with my feet firmly planted on the ground, not with even more variables that are outside of my control. Its not to say daycare in a rental can't work, but its not like you are already living in a rental and have just decided to set up, you are purposely relocating and signing up for a rental for this specific purpose. I do wish you the best of look finding a suitable rental property for setting up your daycare, but wanted to offer some perspective from another viewpoint and one that has slightly different criteria when searching for a daycare rental rather than primarily for a family residence and also from someone with some experience of other providers having been in this situation.
I also want to acknowledge that I understand not everyone has the luxury of having the choice of whether to rent or own. Then you make the best of what you do have and just be well versed in the reality of what you are entering into. Whether you rent or own doesn't reflect the quality of care you are able to provide, but in my opinion makes a renter more at risk for instability as your residence is not entirely under your control. Certain things are just out of your hands and circumstances can come up without any foresight as they are under your landlords control not yours.
Good points. For daycare it is better to own. Unfortunately that's not an option for me yet, unless I can find a rent to own option. Your advice gave me a good idea. Instead of looking at places for rent, I should look for places for sale and see if they want to do a rent to own. Maybe rent for 2 years while I save up a down payment to purchase.
…Mortgage payments are generally lower than rent for the same place, and rent means you need to make sure the owner will allow use of the home for daycare, but each has its own advantages. – You know, it’s always better when you own your house and not rent it. Renting is good for people who change their work place frequently, or his job is connected with diffrenet cities when you can’t buy an apartment or house in one city and live there. Or for young couples that haven’t decided yet whether they will continue their relationship. To my mind, every family dreams about their own house. Some mortgage payments are really lower than rent for the same place. That is why people choose purchasing getting the loan and not renting. I just remember when I had my rental apartment, you can’t be sure that your landlord will appear a good person that won’t evict you anytime or will raise the rent. It’s unpredictable. Moreover, you can’t make any home improvements that you’d like to do.
http://localmartca.com/
Mike,
I'm in the same boat as you. I really would love to start my own home daycare but would have to do it out of a rental. How the heck do you have that conversation with a potential landlord?! And, is insurance tough to find for a rental/day home business?