I should have been a contractor/tradesman.
Doesn’t this mean that rent is too damn high?
In my country an average house that sells for 200k would be rented for 800 euro. It’s 20 years, seems reasonable. Add taxes and the burden to pay all the maintenance and it becomes 25-30 years
Otherwise people would buy houses as an investment compared to a necessity
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Repeat after me: it’s okay to rent. Equity is not everything.
The downvotes are really depressing. My point is that we’ve been conditioned in America to focus solely on homeownership. The banks, title companies, realtors, and home contractors tout it as the American dream. No matter the personal cost–the down payment, the interest, the insurance, the maintenance–and no matter what negative externalities–sprawl, inefficient heating and cooling, increased infrastructure, car pollution, divorce and obesity from commuting–you must buy a house.
I get it. If your overriding concern in life is to maximize investment, then by all means pour your cash into a house.
I dont want to own because of equity, there is a lot of other reasons why owning is important for me. For example there is a lot of things I would like to do in my apt that I cannot as a renter: passing cables in the walls, moving a wall, adding some electric plugs etc. I also have less stability, even if I have some protections tbe owner could always decide to do some big renovations and kick me out.
Renting is okay, but there is big drawbacks and I should be able to own if I want to.
Definitely. The effects on your equity and net worth are nice to have obviously, but owning is nice for really tailoring your living space to your preferences.
This goes for outside too. Having a completely fenced in back yard for kids and dogs is so nice.
And aside from that, house prices going up also means rent going up. Rent going up means more people in the streets. It’s just bad for everyone who is not already an owner
Renting and ownership can be fairly similar in larger cities (but costs more than owning a house in my state), but when you’re in the rural America, there tends to be a fairly sharp decrease in quality of life despite the fact that rental prices adjust up with housing prices anyway.
I mean, I can still get a half-acre of land and private house for a mortgage payment that’s about the same as the rent on a 2 bedroom apartment. Without having to worry about a landlord, an upstairs neighbor with toddlers. I can do what I want with my yard, even have any pet without an additional “pet fee”.
And rental houses (the happy medium?) in my area are going for exactly what the mortgage would be to buy one today. We’re talking $3000, even $4000/mo. Yeah, current rates are shitty, but that still gets you a $550,000 mortgage (used to get you closer to $700,000). And rent isn’t going down any time soon, but one can likely refinance to a lower rate in 5-10 years
What it means to me is that I’m not selling my house, with my 3% APR mortgage any time soon despite the $200,000 in equity I have from the price skyrocket.
Well I wouldn’t sell at that rate either, getting 3% in this market just isn’t happening.
I just bought a house and we had to pay $10k just to buy points to get our rate down to 6.9 😭
I don’t think you understand mortgages very well.
You know you can remortgage or sell your house before it’s paid off, right?
If I pay in £500 a month. Likely, 20-80 of that goes to interest. I’m gaining £480 in equity each month.
Which I can gain access it at near any point with very little penalty.
You’re focusing very blindly on your single point of “the deposit”. Which is the hurdle everyone should focus on however possible.
If I pay in £500 a month. Likely, 20-80 of that goes to interest. I’m gaining £480 in equity each month.
What kind of amortization schedule is this based on? This seems completely divorced from reality.
It is. I bought my house two years ago with a low interest rate and it’s still another four years before I’m paying more money towards my principal than interest.
You get down votes on Reddit or Lemmy when you go against the hive mind. Heaven forbid you try to have a rational discussion with a different opinion.
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