I now own my home and I’m mortgage right up to the high heaven, but before I owned a property, I was renting, and it was my first proper home away from my parents. So, if this is you and moving away from your parent’s place for the first time and want to know what is involved with moving to your own place, then I have 3 things to know when renting your first property.

*This is a collaborative post but all thoughts and words on the rental market are my own.

My first rental property was in a retirement complex/estate, it was the cheapest place we could find. It was right next door to a farm and every morning I would wake up to the sound of a rooster. The farm would have firework/bonfire night and I could watch the whole spectacle from my bedroom window. Living in a retirement estate meant the neighbours were pleasant and very quiet, I remember I was once jumping around doing an exercise DVD and was worried that I might be disturbing the people downstairs, it turns out they were deaf and even told me that I was welcome to make as much noise as possible as they couldn’t hear me.

I was 19 or 20 years old at the time and I just got a job working in retail, before I could settle into the job I was told to move out. While I came home one day and found all my stuff in bags and a copy of the local paper, giving me the biggest hint, it was time to leave.

When I first moved out, I knew nothing about living alone, I had to learn about where various switches were and settle arguments on who would do the washing up. I found it to be quite daunting and a little frightening. So never fear as help is here as I’m passing down on what I learnt throughout that period. Here are 3 things to know when renting your first property.

Home insurance.

As soon as we moved in and put our stuff down into the place, I got myself home insurance. I was paranoid that something was going to happen to our stuff if we didn’t.

Landlord.

One year while living there our landlords message us saying they kept a few families’ heirlooms in the property attic and would like to retrieve them. We got talking and the price of rent came up, while at first, it was the cheapest place we could rent, however, our rent was increasing to the point where it was unaffordable, and we ended up buying a place so we could make it a little affordable for us. Anyway, the talk of rent increasing came up and they did admit that their landlord insurance kept increasing due to inflation and they considering putting our place onto the property market in a few years’ time. Which they did as soon as we moved out and as you might be able to tell from that little tale that we soon ended up in a bad situation and it was time to move on.

But typically, you don’t have any dealing with your landlord, and everything is usually done via a rental agent. But I found it knowledgeable to at least know a little bit about your landlord and what state they keep their property at.

You can’t always put your own stamp.

Lots of rental properties often have in their little agreement/rules that you’re not allowed to change the curtains or paint the wall. That was how it was for us, we weren’t allowed to change the mouldy green curtains or put any decorative design up on the wall, which was fine but after a while, we kind of got bored and was desperate to at least put up some shelves for storage purpose.

Those were my little tips on what to know when you are renting your property. Do you have any to add?