There are lots of myths about how people feel about renting. We've pulled some of the best bits from the 2010 British Social Attitudes Housing Module which asked people what they really think.

• The main advantage of renting rather than owning a home is the ability to move at short notice (26 per cent) and not having responsibility for repairs and maintenance (24 per cent).
• The most commonly chosen advantages of renting privately rather than from a housing association or local authority are that it provides a wider choice of location (21 per cent) and it means a...
  

At Rentonomy we consider The Private Landlord Survey one of the best surveys on the rental market in England . It is a national survey commissioned by the Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) of landlords and managing agents who own and/or manage privately rented properties. The key findings of these statistics are:

• Nearly 90% of landlords are private individual landlords responsible for three-quarters of all private rented dwellings.
• More than three quarters of all landlords only owned a single dwelling for rent, with only 8 per cent of...
  

Location, location, location. How many times have you heard that? When buying a property this is undoubtedly the most important aspect to consider as the location of your property has the biggest impact on its value. When renting however, your property is not an investment so the location isn't so critical.

Where you live, the size of the property and how much you spend is up to you - well, to a degree. Go for something large and cheap and that means living a million miles from nowhere. Go somewhere central and big and you'll have to spend a fortune but go for something...

This analysis can get complicated very quickly so we're going to keep it really simple. The best way to think of it is that you and a friend moved into flats in the same area a year ago. One of you bought with a repayment mortgage and the other one rented. In the beginning there were agency fees, mortgage deposits, administrative charges etc. However after a while the costs were just the regular cost of the mortgage and the regular cost of the rent. This analysis looks at who is better off in each area of London.

As the map above shows, in most areas it's cheaper to buy,...