Tenant insurance policy holders will include prospective first-time buyers trying to save a deposit, but could also include people who have sold a property but have not found the dream home they are seeking.

In such a situation, renting makes a lot of sense: it gives the tenants content insurance customer the chance to see what it is like living in an area where they may buy and to see what facilities and schools are like. They can then make an offer on a property as a cash buyer, rather than someone with a property chain dragging along behind them.

Another trend is for older people who choose to rent in the later part of their lives so that their outgoings are predictable and they can live within a set budget, possibly having sold the house that they owned.

There will, of course, also be some free spirits who choose to rent, preferring the flexibility it offers compared to that or living as an owner-occupier. They benefit from not being responsible for the maintenance of the property, so they can plan their finances very well because all the other costs related to accommodation (rent, tenants contents insurance and bills) are predictable.

TEMPORARY ACCOMMODATION

Another reason why tenant insurance policy holders rent is if your job moves to a different part of the country, perhaps temporarily, or that you are not confident will be a permanent arrangement. It makes sense to take a room or a small flat rather than go through the financial and emotional hassle of buying a property that you may need to sell in the near future. If you are considering moving to a new area, renting for six months to see what it is really like is an investment in your quality of life: if you find out that you don’t like the area, you can move to another one far more easily than if you had bought property.

Two other groups of people that require temporary accommodation are students who are unlikely to be able to afford a property, often go to college away from home, returning for holidays.

Many people don’t think about taking a holiday cottage as rental accommodation, but it is, in its truest form, going away for a few weeks and staying in a property by the sea or a remote area of the country, or abroad.

The advantage of renting temporarily is that it can be a safer bet in times of economic uncertainty. If you invest in a property when prices were high, a fall in the market – as happened in the early 1 990s – can mean you lose money on your investment, whereas rental prices are typically less volatile.

However, the disadvantage of renting in a rising property market is that you are not getting any return for your money apart from a roof over your head. Rent payments are ‘dead’ money, while the price of the property you might eventually want to buy will go up, possibly out of your range.