this post was submitted on 04 Sep 2023
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No because if I owned a home I would have equity. Spending 50% of your income on shelter is a lot easier to swallow if you're getting equity out of the deal.
If you're renting, you get fuck nothing, even though you're still spending money.
Out of a 2k+ monthly payment, $400 goes towards paying down the principal.
You know how much equity I'd have after 1 year? Less than 5k.
You know how much closing costs would be if I sold? Up to 32-40k.
I'd need about 8 years of living in the house to build enough equity to just break even when selling
This is of course not factoring in a single expensive maintenance item. New roof, new sewer pipes, new HVAC, new water heater will run you ballpark of 50k in maintenance costs, and those are just the big ticket items. Throw those in, and you wouldn't even break even moving after living somewhere for a decade.
If you're young and still establishing your career, it's better to have the ability to pursue better job opportunities across the country while renting. In my industry it's common for folks to find new, higher paying jobs every 3-5 years. Based on my assumptions made, if I move before 8 years, I'd have paid more owning a home than renting due to closing costs.
EDIT: This also doesn't factor in the closing costs you've paid as a buyer. I THINK mine were around 10k? I'll have to check. Google says average rates are between 3-6% of the loan amount so 10k is probably right. So add another 1-2 years before breaking even.
This is all assuming the value of your home doesn't change at all over time, which is an utterly retarded assumption.
The reality is if you bought at least 3 years ago, it's likely the value of your home has doubled already, putting your equity equal to your debt, without even accounting for mortgage payments in the meantime.
Oh you might also be interested to know that less-than-5k figure is about equivalent to what I can save every year as a renter. Except that's just my rainy day fund and it gets spent on extraneous costs and I hardly actually save anything at all.
So you're sitting pretty over there, despite your whining.
And if I didn't? Given the absolutely asinine bubble causing the cost of housing increase over the last three years, alongside the spike in interest rates, can you honestly say the value of a home will keep going up? Fwiw the estimated price of my place has dropped 20% since I bought it. I don't think this bubble is sustainable. The cost of rent has risen absurdly with no real cause.
Yeah that's fair. As I said earlier, I hope you're able to advance or switch your career to get to a better place. Many of my friends got jobs at the local uni to leverage the tuition assistance towards a practical degree to work towards a career change/advancement, and there's also the trades if you're able-bodied enough.
Then you still have a home which will almost certainly never be taken away from you.
And renters are still at the mercy of the landlord.
It's nice to come full circle like this in a discussion, it really helps to hammer my point home.
If you're going to ignore everything I said about being able to move within a decade for better job opportunities, sure.
I'm ignoring it because it was wrong.
I'm sorry if it's not true for your situation.
I don't think this is a constructive conversation, so I don't see a point in continuing. Hope you have a good day!