Some people prefer to rent a house for accommodation, while others prefer to buy their own house. Does renting a house have more advantages or disadvantages than buying a house?
Sample Response
Choosing a place to live in, and whether to rent or own it is a major decision. Many people prefer to own a house rather than liverather than to live in a rented apartment while others choose to do exactly the opposite. Both options have their ownBoth have their own advantages and disadvantagesbenefits and demerits. However, I believe that owning a house has far more advantages than renting an apartment.
To begincommence with, people often rent a house because purchasing a property requires a largehuge sum of money and the rapidly rising property pricesskyrocketing property prices in big cities make it impossible for many to own a house. These people naturally rent an apartment. There are certain advantages to living in a rented apartment. First of all, a tenant does not havethe person does not have to pay a large upfront sumpay a large amount of money or pay propertyhousing taxes and bear the costs of maintenance. Moreover, such people can move homechange their living places according to the location of their workplacebased on the location of their workplace and children’s schoolsschool. The renovation of the apartment is the landlord’s responsibility, and the tenants do not need to worry about it.
By contrastOn the contrary, owning a house gives a sense of personal achievement that tenants cannot enjoy. A house is a permanent asset, and over time, its price increases, givingits price increases giving the owner a substantial return on the investment. The landlord can rent out the house to others and this can be a steady source of incomeearnings for him or her. Furthermore, being the owner of a house means there is no one over the shoulder to watch what someone is doing and no sudden notice of evacuation. For instance, we had to vacate our apartment unexpectedlyall of a sudden at least three timesat least thrice beforeuntil we purchased our own house a decade agoearlier. This is some sort of freedom that only houseowners enjoy.
To conclude, renting a flat has some benefits but the overall freedom and financial benefitsmonetary compensations house owners enjoy are far more significant, and this is why every tenant dreams of owning a house someday.
Why this response received Band 7.5
The essay gives a clear comparative judgement and develops practical financial, mobility, maintenance, investment, and housing-security considerations, including an effective personal example. Its strongest feature is the balanced progression from renting’s benefits to ownership’s stronger advantages. The main limitation is occasional imprecise or unnatural wording; prioritise explicitly framing ownership benefits as corresponding rental disadvantages and using accurate housing terms such as ‘eviction notice’ and ‘rental income’.
IELTS Writing Criteria Scores
Task Response
The question is directly answered through a clear judgement and well-developed comparison of financial, practical, investment, and security factors.
Make the comparison still more explicit by stating how the absence of equity and insecure tenure are disadvantages of renting rather than only benefits of ownership.
Coherence and Cohesion
The response is logically paragraphed and progresses clearly from rental benefits to stronger ownership benefits and a consistent conclusion.
Replace ‘On the contrary’ with a more accurate comparative transition and tighten repeated references to renting and owning a house.
Lexical Resource
Vocabulary is varied and generally effective for housing and finance, though several choices are unnatural or semantically imprecise.
Prefer ‘rental income’, ‘eviction notice’, ‘homeowners’, ‘financial returns’, and ‘move home’ over the less natural expressions used.
Grammatical Range and Accuracy
A useful range of complex structures is generally controlled, with occasional punctuation, article, reference, and phrasing errors that do not impede meaning.
Add the missing comma before ‘giving’, clarify pronoun reference, and revise the time phrase in the personal example to ‘before we bought our home ten years ago’.
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IELTS Writing Task 2
Some people prefer to rent a house for accommodation, while others prefer to buy their own house. Does renting a house have more advantages or disadvantages than buying a house?
Your response
Write the task yourself, then compare your choices with the annotated response.