this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2023
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It's cute that you think life is inexpensive once you pay off your mortgage at 65 and have spent several thousand dollars throughout the years maintaining that house that would've otherwise been put into your savings account
If it weren't more profitable to own a house than it were to rent, there wouldn't be such a thing as landlords.
No one said it wasn't. It's just that people think it's easier and more profitable than it often is. also people for some reason are okay with giving a bank an absurd amount of money just because they think it's a better deal. And no I don't have to like giving money to a landlord to make this observation
It definitely is a better deal though, if you can scrape up the sum.
You rent for 20 years, all the money you've spent over those 240 months is gone forever. That wealth has been transferred from you to another entity. It's not yours anymore in any way shape or form.
You buy a house, your wealth just changes shape. Money in your bank account becomes real estate with your name on the papers. You still have your wealth, for the most part. Sure you'll lose some on the maintenance and the mortgage and whatnot, but long term it's not even in the same ballpark of 240 months of rent.
Not a difficult decision to make, if, again, you are in a position to make it in the first place.
Have you read my other comments? I don't really need an explanation of how home ownership works. I owned a home for a decade. I lost money. I'm not saying that always happens, just that there are several factors not considered by many people who want to be a homeowner. Yes, it's practically always less expensive, but it's also often stressful.
... we pay for things we'd rather not deal with all the time. No, it's not money pissed into the wind, I got something for it. Peace of mind for those 20 years. Sleeping in instead of mowing the grass or taking the mower to a mechanic so I can do that.
I have enough stress to deal with without maintaining a property. I may decide to make that trade off again some day, but it's absolutely not this cut and dried thing where renting is stupid if you can own. There are a lot of tradeoffs involved in owning vs renting.
In the short term, renting isn't always stupid if you can own, but most of the time it is. In the long term, renting is, with very rare exceptions, much worse than buying. For context, even those who bought in 2005 at the peak of the last housing bubble on a fixed 30y are saving a fuckton by owning rather than renting. They would be paying 3-4x more renting than owning today.
Over time the mortgage payment is less expensive than it was at first, due to inflation. My rent is 3x more than my neighbor's mortgage because they bought their house 15 years ago.
It's less about that the money gets spent and more about the outcome. The money is burned either way, but now maybe my kids will have it easier and can save their money. Maybe we can start to build more generational wealth, and their kids can have even better lives.
That's the idea we are sold, yes
Man, what the heck happened that made you so bitter about home ownership? I know it can be a pain at times, but it's one of the simplest and most reliable ways we have to build wealth and escape being wage slaves.
Why can't I criticize the very real issues about something without being against it entirely? I'm not...
I wish someone had properly warned me before I bought a house
It's not the criticism. It's the condescension and bitterness. Your case is an outlier; an anecdote, yet you're talking about it like it's the norm when the data shows it is not. So I asked what your story is, because that's the important part. What happened? What lesson can people learn from your situation that might help them avoid it themselves?
What is not an outlier, happens probably 90% of the time, is when a young person hastily buys a house it is a lot more to deal with and more expensive than they think it will be.
Most of the haters here seem pretty condescending and bitter to me, that's not what I'm trying to be. But then again, I probably wasted 500 hours of my life and $150,000 unnecessarily, which could've been avoided if I had just been more careful. Literally no one cautioned me, everyone pretty much encouraged me every step of the way. So yeah I guess I'm bitter, and that comes out when a bunch of strangers tell me I am an idiot who loves renting and hates owning because I dare to dissent
A lot of you are filling in all the gaps with shit you made up.
What happened was I set an arbitrarily low price for a house and stuck to it. The result is that I bought an old house that was pretty blah. Ended up spending a lot on it, and 5 years later when I decided to move it was a huge burden. No one wanted to pay a cent more than I had paid and I had to rent it. Had one good tenant and one super shitty tenant. It was a huge hassle. I lost money, even compared to if I had just rented those years.
Because I thought like a lot of you here (renting is ALWAYS bad), I fucked up. I should have been more careful.
What you are willing to write off as an outlier that never happens probably happens every single day. Buying a house is not magic. They are a lot of work. They can be very expensive.
Thanks for the explanation and context. Your opinion makes more sense now.
What do you want then? To have nothing? For your children to struggle like we do? I want mine to have a leg up, any advantage I can give them.
I'm going to save my money until the time is truly right, vs hurrying to buy because "anything is better than renting"
Also, I will definitely not be having any children
Ah yes. Fill a landlords pocket or a bank. Does it really matter? At least after you pay your mortgage off, that money just goes to taxes and then you “own” that property. Instead of renting until you die. Get real.
I have done both, home ownership is also expensive and more stressful. Unless you've owned a home for over 10 years maybe don't get so mad at me for telling you that the American dream is a lie
We owned and went back to renting. Home ownership sucks. Taxes, maintenance, the stress of finding contractors who couldn't care less about you, Saturdays at the Home Depot, being trapped under the weight of a mortgage for 10+ years before you even see a mild positive increase in your equity...it's a joke. And if you want to move? Forget it. You're stuck.
I have the exact opposite problem, I'm sick of moving. I have to move just about every 2 years because of some bullshit my landlord pulls... I just want stability, to know I don't have to worry about looking for a new place so damn often...
Prior to buying our house, the longest I had lived in one house/apt for the past decade was no more than 2 years. After being in our house for a year, it legit felt weird to not be packing up our things and getting ready to vacate. It was amazing to not have to go through the stress of finding a decent place at a decent price and then moving. It also felt so much better knowing how much some of my friends pay for their Apts and that my mortgage is cheaper than their tiny ass one bedroom. And that my monthly price isn't going to increase next year like everyone else who's renting and needs to renew their leases. Yeah, we're the ones who take care of our own maintenance and yard work. But everything we've done so far would be things that we would have taken care of ourselves in a rented house.
The responsibility is more yes. The decrease in stress in regards to finding a new place to live constantly, the general stress of moving, and not having a place that you can legitimately call home has made us feel like this has by far been the superior choice.
Exactly! For some reason this makes people angry though. Be careful 😉
I think that people also have this idea that it's easy to maintain a property. Maybe -- temporarily -- if you find the right place. I always had a list of like 10 things I needed to do. Every time I started one of those things, the job suddenly got more expensive and time consuming than anticipated. Also, mowing/weedeating a yard is literally the last way I ever want to spend hours of my weekends.
Im sorry you are such a miserable person. I hope your day gets better.
What a weird response
I hope you find your meds today
Nah he’s right
You people are this butthurt about your mortgages?...
I have done both too, owning is so much better even with the maintenance.
Did changing the water heater element that could only be accessed from outside in the middle of winter suck?
Yep, but I had the option to just call a guy if I wanted.
But I could hang pictures, paint and reshape the landscape however I wanted.
Ok great. I'm writing these messages as a warning to those bystanders who are thinking about buying. It can be a way worse experience than I thought it could be.
But what do I know, I'm just MiSeRaBlE
I'm on your side bruh. We've owned our home since 2013. It's appreciated $100K, but we also spent $60K last year alone in windows/siding/getting the whole house replumbed because there ended up being a massive leak in the foundation.
We had planned for the windows/siding, plumbing was just a nice bonus (it was noticed by our siding contractor actually).
We've also replaced the HVAC, leveled the foundation, replaced the HWH, replaced the roof (that was a lucky insurance thing though due to a massive hail storm), replaced the gutters, and the flooring over the years since buying.
So...if we ever decide/need to sell, we'll break even.
And we didn't buy a shitty house either. It was built in 1995. It was already 18 years old when we got it, and it's nearly 30 now. People don't realize that this shit doesn't last forever.
That being said, while I will be Team Renter when we leave this duty station, I'm also in a privileged position being that I'll have a pension. I completely understand people who don't have that safety net wanting a little more stability/security.
That sounds like such a hassle! Worse than mine stress wise for sure but it sounds like you'll do a little better than I did financially. I bought a somewhat shitty house admittedly (built around 1960 and needed a bit of work but fully livable), and definitely lost money. I thought breaking even was the worst that could've happened...
The point I'm making is that owning is not a panacea, and has a whole host of its own issues. I'm glad someone else gets that!