this post was submitted on 05 Dec 2023
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[–] DessertStorms@kbin.social 86 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I'm starting to feel like there's not much choice

wait until you hear about renting (for those of us who really don't have a choice) - you get to be a wage slave and at the mercy of a greedy landlord..

[–] Asafum@feddit.nl 28 points 11 months ago (2 children)

And you get no security of retirement! Thanks ever increasing rent!

[–] SPRUNT@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago

Of course not. You gotta build your landlords retirement instead.

[–] garbagebagel@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago

Who needs retirement when I can just die!

[–] general_kitten@sopuli.xyz 51 points 11 months ago (2 children)

by buying a house you get to be a wage slave for a couple dozen years, By renting you can be a wage slave for your whole life

[–] kandoh@reddthat.com 14 points 11 months ago (1 children)

By renting a home, you'll pay 1300 a month for the rest of your life.

By buying a home, you'll pay 800 dollars a month for the rest of your life, with the occasional 5 - 10 thousand dollars surprises every now and again.

[–] Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca 12 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Except in the end you can also sell that house for $600k-$900k+ at 65 years old then use half of that to rent the next 30 years and have the rest to do whatever the fuck you want.

[–] JPJones@startrek.website 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

And rent goes up. In 10 years, the mortgage will be the same.

[–] Enk1@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Not true, unfortunately. Insurance and property taxes go up and payment on those is typically held in escrow with your mortgage. If you're unfortunate enough to live in a state with a clown taint for a governor, like say Ron DeSantis, your mortgage payment could, for example, go up by $600/month this year. Ask me how I know.

[–] JPJones@startrek.website 5 points 11 months ago

Insurance and property taxes aren't part of the mortgage outside of an escrow account, so yes, it is true.

Regardless, the point is still that rents will increase a lot more than monthly overhead for owning.

[–] Kage520@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

Florida has a really great Homestead though, capping your property tax increases to 3% per year. For the insurance, you can probably get Citizens, which isn't great but it's something.

[–] kandoh@reddthat.com 4 points 11 months ago

So long as the government continues to exercise control over supply to ensure that your investment goes up. There are places like Japan where the value of your home decreases over time because they build new housing when its needed.

[–] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (17 children)

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

[–] Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca 24 points 11 months ago (1 children)

If it weren't more profitable to own a house than it were to rent, there wouldn't be such a thing as landlords.

[–] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] herrvogel@lemmy.world 13 points 11 months ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] Anticorp@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

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.

[–] ZeroTHM@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago (2 children)

That's the idea we are sold, yes

[–] ZeroTHM@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

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.

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[–] JPJones@startrek.website 3 points 11 months ago (4 children)

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.

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[–] quams69@lemmy.world 26 points 11 months ago

I'm a wage slave and I can't even afford a house 👍

[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 18 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Either way, you end up slaving away for someone else's profit. Either a landlord or a bank.

[–] WaxedWookie@lemmy.world 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

That's supposed to be an either thing?

[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 8 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Supposed to be, no. Turned out to be, yes.

[–] TheRedSpade@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I think they were implying that it turned out to be both rather than either.

[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 2 points 11 months ago

Ahhhh, gotcha

[–] Signtist@lemm.ee 6 points 11 months ago

Eh, owning land is the closest thing a regular person can have to a real investment. I bought a shitty house back in 2019 and sold it recently without having made any improvements to it at all, yet it sold for enough money to offset all of the mortgage payments I'd made since purchasing it. Sure, all it did was make me break even on housing, rather than actually profiting from it, but that's a hell of a lot better than 4 years of $1,000+ rent payments a month down the drain. I'd likely have made a decent profit if I'd done anything to fix it up.

I used the money from the sale to buy an actually decent house in a better neighborhood that I'd never have been able to afford back in 2019, even though my financial situation has stayed pretty much the same. And this house will likely sell for an actual profit in a few years if I decide to move again, while being a great place to live in the meantime to boot.

[–] Paddzr@lemmy.world 12 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I accept that I will not benefit from this. But my son will. Even if he sells it once I'm gone and helps him elsewhere. Just got to not fail as a parent and teach him not to spend it on ethots!

[–] MasterNerd@lemm.ee 11 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Until you get laid off in corporate downsizing to increase profits by .5% and then you can't afford your mortgage and the bank seizes your house

[–] r00ty@kbin.life 2 points 11 months ago

But actually a lot of businesses do the same, so there's now a lot of middle size repossessed houses on the market and no-one that can buy them. So they auction it, and another corporation buys it up for their rental portfolio at half the price you paid. So now the bank comes after you for the rest of the money, for the rest of your life.

But you can feel happy that the banks didn't lose, and the corporations won!

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[–] ZeroTHM@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago
[–] FartsWithAnAccent@lemmy.world 11 points 11 months ago (1 children)

You're a wage slave regardless unless you're rich or lucky: Gotta have money to eat, get healthcare, have shelter, etc

[–] Enk1@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago

Rich get richer. Had some recent inheritance roll to an IRA, looking at mutual funds to put it into until I'm required to withdraw it. There are ones tracking at 30-45% returns month after month while the economy is in the shitter. Want in? Minimum purchase amount for those funds is $100,000-250,000. The funds normal people can afford pull down more like 15% RoR on aggressive investments, which are super volatile.

You have to be wealthy to get wealthy. 99% of us are getting fucked by the 0.1% - the 1% just happen to have enough money to get into the lower levels of the game, but the 0.1% have investment options we'll never be party to.

It's amazing how many people will simp for these billionaires like Musk, and claim they're "in the game" with their investments and net worth. They're not. If your net worth is less than mid eight figures, you're not in the game, you're a rounding error.

[–] ExfilBravo@lemmy.world 6 points 11 months ago

Leaving us only one real option here government.

[–] 0x4E4F@infosec.pub 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Fuck the economy, buy a condo!

[–] Custoslibera@lemmy.world 24 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I can’t even afford a van down by the river.

[–] 0x4E4F@infosec.pub 4 points 11 months ago

Well, if it was burnt and scrap metal, I can afford it.

[–] ALostInquirer@lemm.ee 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

what if you tried squatting some properties instead?

[–] Rebsalot@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

That is an option some places! It does require that the area/country you live/choose does not viciously prosecute squatters. #USAproblems Wiki link

[–] themeatbridge@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago

Oh no! Homeless people are sheltering in unoccupied real estate without going to prison! They should just die outside to protect the investors who rely on homelessness to maintain property values!

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