One of the major newspapers recently ran a story about renting appliances. The bottom line is they came to the view that renting is a bad idea. We have done some quick numbers and have come to the same view – buying makes more financial sense than renting.
Our quick, back of a soup-stained serviette calculation shows that those renting a washing machine would have paid the equivalent of a new machine (with warranties) after 12 to 18 months – and that’s for a new machine not a good second hand one which is likely to be what you will get from the rental company.
We reckon a brand new washing machine is good for 10 years (depending on the use) but even assuming a five year life, the cost of the new machine is a fraction of what would be $2,700 in rental costs. Putting the comparative costs aside, there may be situations where renting is preferred. An appliance rental company told us a lot of their machines go to flats where four or so flatmates share in the rental cost and there are no buying and selling hassles and no money issues when flat mates come and go. This does not stop an enterprising individual owning a machine and renting it out to their flatmates as part of the flatting agreement! – Oily Rag Ed’