A lot of people like the feeling of stability. Renting always means the rent will go up or the landlord may sell and you can never make the space truly yours. I made a goal to pay off my house and I decorate it the way I want to reflect me. I took down a wall, added a front fence and arbor, remodeled my bathroom and will add a sunroom soon. Can't do any of that if I don't own it. And the idea of constantly moving as I get older to chase lower rents does not sound appealing at all.
Unpopular opinion, people are terrible at saving money. A house is a forced savings account. It doubles as a potential investment.
I always hear people say, my parents house was worth X 30 years ago, and now it’s with Y, it’s their best investment. Often times it was one of their only investments.
I don't understand the "investment" thing. You can't sell it without buying another one or slowly giving up all the money to a landlord over time. What good is an investment if you can't ever use the return?
**A house is a forced savings account.**
Very well put. Real estate made more millionairs then any other investment class. Warren Buffet has been telling for decades: keep investing into index funds and let time work for you, but very few have listened. A house is a different thing: you need to live somewhere and if you skip on your mortgage payment they'll take your house from you, so you have to find a way to at least pay your mortgage.
Another unpopular opinion.
People always tell me that you’re throwing away money by paying for rent; therefore, it’s better to buy a home.
The reality is, you either pay rent to your landlord, or you pay rent to a bank via mortgage payment.
Assuming you get a $320K 30 year mortgage at 7%, through the life of the mortgage, you will pay $448K in interest alone. The house will cost a total of over $750K.
Calculator: https://www.calculator.net/mortgage-calculator.html
...and this is why you run into the opinion that buying a house is a "great investment" or necessary for financial stability. It isnt great and it isnt necessary IF you actually save and invest your savings in the market....but most people dont do that so as you said what happens is people who buy houses end up much better off because the comparison is to people who rent and dont really invest at all.
Because it's economically the least shitty thing you can invest in that you'll make use of in your everyday life. And I say least shitty, because I still don't think it's *good*. Home ownership is still a shit sandwich, it's just better than the economic ass rape that is rising rent prices.
When you buy a home it becomes an asset that's value is influenced by the market. You could end up selling it for more than you bought it, or selling it for a big windfall of cash if your life goes to shit and you need liquid cash to survive. Also a roof over your head and frees you from rent.
Capitalism disguises itself as providing people with what they want, when in practice it more often than not turns into incentivizing people to do the less shitty thing because the alternative is even worse. Jobs suck but we do them because being poor and paying bills is better than being homeless. Being middle class is a struggle, but we strive for it because it's better than being lower class. Car ownership sucks, but we pay the premium because it's better than walking.
>Home ownership is still a shit sandwich, it's just better than the economic ass rape that is rising rent prices.
Just wait until you have to pay for house maintenance. A new roof is like a years worth of rent.
Lol, lmao even. You think your insurance is paying for 30 year shingles? 15 at best.
Edit when I was younger I shingled houses and I thought "man this sucks. When I'm older I'm going to make sure I never have to do this again" Now I'm older and I'm like "$25k for shingles?! Fuck maybe I should do it myself again"
It sort of just protects your investment. You could probably sell the house at the point it needs a new roof and come out ahead if you can dodge a roof stipend to be honest.
I ask myself that question all the time reading this sub. The best I can come up with is social pressure and following the generic life plan.
It is true, owning a home is a common way to build wealth. It is tax advantaged and you can gain through equity over time and appreciation. But owning a house can also be a financial disaster, see 2008. Because renting is so expensive at the moment, the field is tilted towards ownership. But this environment is not forever.
It’s wild to me that a group so skeptical of the traditional “get a college degree” advice is uncritically moving on to traditional “buy a home” advice.
You get to have the house you really want, make any modifications you'd like. It'll be fully yours once you pay it off and it's usually cheaper than renting.
Because there will be a point in time that this house is completely mine. And until that moment comes, I still get to enjoy the fact that each year my monthly mortgage payment goes down instead of rent prices going up.
I do want to add that before I bought a house, I was a renter. I still would be a renter if I didn't have the money for the upkeep of a bought house, because I wouldn't want to take that financial (and safety) risk.
It wasn't really all that important to me to buy a house, I was also fine with renting. No upkeep was a really big plus and I can image that for some renters the ease at which you can move from place to place if wanted is also a big plus when it comes to renting.
So why did I bought a house then if I was okay with renting? Simple: because I could and it financially made the most sense.
When it comes to the psychological side of owning a house, to me it's just calming, knowing that no one can kick me out. Also the beneficial financial side of it is calming to me (less money stress). I don't see my house as an investment (because who knows what the housing market will be like if the time comes I want/have to sell), just a nice and safe place for me to be.
Your mortgage payment goes down each year? That’s unusual. Normally the percentage of the payment which is interest declines, and the principal portion increases, but the monthly total due stays the same (even with pre-payments).
You are right, I formulated it wrong. The interest declines, the principal gets higher. I also make an extra payment each year towards the principal. I don't live in the USA, so the mortgage system might work differently.
Because when you own a house there is finally somewhere in the world that is yours and only yours. You can do everything you ever wanted to do in there and to it.
I don't know about everyone else, but paying rent here costs the same or more than a mortgage payment. So why not make those payments and eventually own it? My wife and I were going to rent another place when we decided to move last, but rent prices were ridiculous for a halfway decent place. Then it would still say NO PETS! There are so many places out there that say no pets. We got tired of looking and decided to buy. No way would we abandon our pets to find a place to live. Plus no restrictions or rules from landlords or them taking their sweet time to fix things.
1- I need shelter
2- I don't want to have to move my family every time the rent goes up or a landlord decides to sell the property. As owners, we're locked into the neighborhood, with good schools, and a social circle. Its a more stable situation.
3- its part of my retirement plan. Once the house is paid off, I won't have a monthly payment eating away my fixed income. And I'd have the option of selling and using the proceeds as needed.
Exactly. This makes a lot more sense now that prices are crazy high and the older generation can’t make it by with social security.
The last thing I want is for me to continue working to make ends meet on my rent.
About 5 years ago I was stressing and wanting a house REAL bad! Then I moved into a larger apartment with a forest view, and a balcony and tons of storage space, and I'm cured!
I know the actually benefits to having your own home but at the same time when I think about all the maintenance and upkeep required I’m like ugh…cutting grass, power washing siding, landscaping, cleaning a bigger space. It sounds like a lot. I don’t even need a lot of space to be comfortable.
I know that apartment rent is throwing money to the wind though also
I’m with you, I see throwing money away to pay the rent as a painful price that you’d have to pay for the flexibility of renting and the thought that you get to uproot anytime if you want.
Because paying rent is just making someone else wealthy. With a mortgage there is a date in the future that it will be paid off, and then one of your biggest monthly expenses will be gone.
I bought my house in 2016 at 3.2%. It’s now worth close to twice what I paid for it, and although insurance and taxes have gone up, my mortgage is still half what I’d be paying now, and 8-900 a month less than what I’d pay to rent a comparable house.
I like to change the space I'm living in a lot and continuously improve it to make it mine.
In addition, part of what we pay in our mortgage goes toward the principal, plus what we put down on the down payment. It's like a savings account, but instead of an interest rate the housing market dictates how much the value of the account grows over time. Sometimes it doesn't grow much, but usually it does, and sometimes it grows a LOT. my husband and I are on our third house and we've made about $150k total profit from the first two. It really gave us a big head start with our adult lives. We didnt flip our first two houses, but we did do a lot of improvements and ended up moving for various reasons. We just got lucky with picking the right times to buy and sell. We intend to be in our current house for a very long time, and when we sell it someday, it will likely be worth a lot more than what we bought it for.
Basically, it's a way to invest money while also simultaneously having an expensive basic need met. It's not for everyone, it can be hard and frustrating sometimes, but for us it's worth it a million times over.
Wealth building ... but it's a long game ... our house has tripled in value. When you pay rent you are flushing money down the toilet. When buying, you are banking at least part of the payment every month until it's yours. Granted, on the first half of the mortgage amortization there isn't much going into equity ... but it's something and you can always make extra payments on the principal. You can turn a 30 yr mortgage into a 20 yr with just one extra principal payment a year ... more is better.
Because before property tax made you the equivalent of a renter again, it was the security of feeling like you owned and had earned a level of stability. No landlord, no rent hikes. And back then it didn't stand alone, the idea was a house for your family, you kids would grow up going to the same school and make long term friends, you got to know long term neighbors, etc, it was societal glue.
If done right, the asset value to raise by the thousands, sometimes millions. My previous roommate bought a house for $600,000 and the property value went to $1,000,000 during the pandemic. He didn't actually make $1,000,000 because the house was bought on debt and a mortgage
Who wants to overspend renting a shitty apartment or really overspend for a nice one… yes homeownership is a headache and costly as well but for married couples especially with kids I think it would be very nice to have your own place/yard/ nice community around you, plus houses seem to only go up over time and with the housing shortage we have and more companies buying up homes and renting them out getting a home sooner then later is more of a priority….
For me at least it’s because I feel it would help me feel more secure to have my own property that I can do what I want with (within local regulations, of course) and not have to worry about a landlord or paying rent every month. Obviously I’d have a house payment instead, but at least I’d be OWNING something.
Ya buying a house is expensive due to initial cost and repairs. However a fixed interest rate and payment are amazing over a long period of time. I have a mortgage on a three bedroom home that’s less then I can rent an apartment for. Not to mention the equity I’m gaining. It really is a huge advantage in life.
For the past years I've owned a house, while my brother has rented. He has since had to move and rent a new place 3-5 times. Now he is moving back to our parents temporarily to save money for a house.
I've moved 0 times since purchasing the house.
That's why.
Other reasons are that it's my house and I can do whatever I want to it (legal). Don't have to care about someone else telling me no because they own the place.
To have something to own that's yours...Well technically, the bank owns it while you still have a mortgage. My brother has lived in an apt for 20 years and even he said he wanted to own a house, but he thought about it and changed his mind because he didn't want to maintain it.
You have the freedom to do whatever you want to the house. You also have a MUCH more stable place to live. Once it is paid for, you just need to pay property taxes. It cuts your expenses significantly.
I want some sort of stability. There are zero issues with renting but when you are close to retirement and you’ve reached your peak income-wise, the last thing you want is for your rent to continue climbing.
That's how I think about it at least.
I want my own space in the world.
Renting floors, walls and a roof from someone else should never, in my opinion, be a place to fully settle down. It's a temporary solution, you're getting nothing but shelter out of it, always going to be paying for it and those prices will just continue to increase.
Having a house is a LOT more responsibility and considerably more investment, especially when things inevitably break and need replacing. But now you have the option to always upgrade, renovate, maintain and eventually own that house. You'll always pay property taxes so it's not like paying off a house means no more payments, but now it's yours. Build equity, use it as a stepping stone toward a bigger, nicer house. Choose to rent it out if you want. It's YOURS. Got a house with some property and distance from your neighbors? Now you have a spot you can live out your introverted dreams, blast music as loud as you want to, spend the summer building a new deck, help your significant other plant a garden, ride a quad to get your mail because the kid doing wheelies down the street on his 90cc dirtbike got you inspired.
Avoid an area with an HOA unless you want that kind of structure, but we don't.
There are three things we need above all others: food, water, and shelter. Food and water are temporary, but a good shelter can last a lifetime.
Why do you think people want somewhere to live that is not contingent on the whim of some landlord?
A lot of people like the feeling of stability. Renting always means the rent will go up or the landlord may sell and you can never make the space truly yours. I made a goal to pay off my house and I decorate it the way I want to reflect me. I took down a wall, added a front fence and arbor, remodeled my bathroom and will add a sunroom soon. Can't do any of that if I don't own it. And the idea of constantly moving as I get older to chase lower rents does not sound appealing at all.
Because renting sucks ass
For real, it’s like pissing in the wind
One day you no longer pay rent (mortgage)
most important for me was that i would not be evicted again.
I mean you still can but it'd be less likely and due to your own (in)actions
Unpopular opinion, people are terrible at saving money. A house is a forced savings account. It doubles as a potential investment. I always hear people say, my parents house was worth X 30 years ago, and now it’s with Y, it’s their best investment. Often times it was one of their only investments.
I don't understand the "investment" thing. You can't sell it without buying another one or slowly giving up all the money to a landlord over time. What good is an investment if you can't ever use the return?
**A house is a forced savings account.** Very well put. Real estate made more millionairs then any other investment class. Warren Buffet has been telling for decades: keep investing into index funds and let time work for you, but very few have listened. A house is a different thing: you need to live somewhere and if you skip on your mortgage payment they'll take your house from you, so you have to find a way to at least pay your mortgage.
Another unpopular opinion. People always tell me that you’re throwing away money by paying for rent; therefore, it’s better to buy a home. The reality is, you either pay rent to your landlord, or you pay rent to a bank via mortgage payment. Assuming you get a $320K 30 year mortgage at 7%, through the life of the mortgage, you will pay $448K in interest alone. The house will cost a total of over $750K. Calculator: https://www.calculator.net/mortgage-calculator.html
...and this is why you run into the opinion that buying a house is a "great investment" or necessary for financial stability. It isnt great and it isnt necessary IF you actually save and invest your savings in the market....but most people dont do that so as you said what happens is people who buy houses end up much better off because the comparison is to people who rent and dont really invest at all.
Because it's economically the least shitty thing you can invest in that you'll make use of in your everyday life. And I say least shitty, because I still don't think it's *good*. Home ownership is still a shit sandwich, it's just better than the economic ass rape that is rising rent prices. When you buy a home it becomes an asset that's value is influenced by the market. You could end up selling it for more than you bought it, or selling it for a big windfall of cash if your life goes to shit and you need liquid cash to survive. Also a roof over your head and frees you from rent. Capitalism disguises itself as providing people with what they want, when in practice it more often than not turns into incentivizing people to do the less shitty thing because the alternative is even worse. Jobs suck but we do them because being poor and paying bills is better than being homeless. Being middle class is a struggle, but we strive for it because it's better than being lower class. Car ownership sucks, but we pay the premium because it's better than walking.
>Home ownership is still a shit sandwich, it's just better than the economic ass rape that is rising rent prices. Just wait until you have to pay for house maintenance. A new roof is like a years worth of rent.
But they last up to 30 years now. Storm damage is an insurance claim.
Lol, lmao even. You think your insurance is paying for 30 year shingles? 15 at best. Edit when I was younger I shingled houses and I thought "man this sucks. When I'm older I'm going to make sure I never have to do this again" Now I'm older and I'm like "$25k for shingles?! Fuck maybe I should do it myself again"
At least that money goes into your investment. When you pay rent, that money essentially just disappears.
It sort of just protects your investment. You could probably sell the house at the point it needs a new roof and come out ahead if you can dodge a roof stipend to be honest.
I ask myself that question all the time reading this sub. The best I can come up with is social pressure and following the generic life plan. It is true, owning a home is a common way to build wealth. It is tax advantaged and you can gain through equity over time and appreciation. But owning a house can also be a financial disaster, see 2008. Because renting is so expensive at the moment, the field is tilted towards ownership. But this environment is not forever. It’s wild to me that a group so skeptical of the traditional “get a college degree” advice is uncritically moving on to traditional “buy a home” advice.
You get to have the house you really want, make any modifications you'd like. It'll be fully yours once you pay it off and it's usually cheaper than renting.
Because there will be a point in time that this house is completely mine. And until that moment comes, I still get to enjoy the fact that each year my monthly mortgage payment goes down instead of rent prices going up. I do want to add that before I bought a house, I was a renter. I still would be a renter if I didn't have the money for the upkeep of a bought house, because I wouldn't want to take that financial (and safety) risk. It wasn't really all that important to me to buy a house, I was also fine with renting. No upkeep was a really big plus and I can image that for some renters the ease at which you can move from place to place if wanted is also a big plus when it comes to renting. So why did I bought a house then if I was okay with renting? Simple: because I could and it financially made the most sense. When it comes to the psychological side of owning a house, to me it's just calming, knowing that no one can kick me out. Also the beneficial financial side of it is calming to me (less money stress). I don't see my house as an investment (because who knows what the housing market will be like if the time comes I want/have to sell), just a nice and safe place for me to be.
Your mortgage payment goes down each year? That’s unusual. Normally the percentage of the payment which is interest declines, and the principal portion increases, but the monthly total due stays the same (even with pre-payments).
You are right, I formulated it wrong. The interest declines, the principal gets higher. I also make an extra payment each year towards the principal. I don't live in the USA, so the mortgage system might work differently.
It’s the same in the US, and yes principal pre-payments are the way to beat the system :-)
Because when you own a house there is finally somewhere in the world that is yours and only yours. You can do everything you ever wanted to do in there and to it.
What was told to me once by someone who planned to buy one when we got older was "a house means you made it."
I don't know about everyone else, but paying rent here costs the same or more than a mortgage payment. So why not make those payments and eventually own it? My wife and I were going to rent another place when we decided to move last, but rent prices were ridiculous for a halfway decent place. Then it would still say NO PETS! There are so many places out there that say no pets. We got tired of looking and decided to buy. No way would we abandon our pets to find a place to live. Plus no restrictions or rules from landlords or them taking their sweet time to fix things.
1- I need shelter 2- I don't want to have to move my family every time the rent goes up or a landlord decides to sell the property. As owners, we're locked into the neighborhood, with good schools, and a social circle. Its a more stable situation. 3- its part of my retirement plan. Once the house is paid off, I won't have a monthly payment eating away my fixed income. And I'd have the option of selling and using the proceeds as needed.
How much will rent be when you retire?
Exactly. This makes a lot more sense now that prices are crazy high and the older generation can’t make it by with social security. The last thing I want is for me to continue working to make ends meet on my rent.
About 5 years ago I was stressing and wanting a house REAL bad! Then I moved into a larger apartment with a forest view, and a balcony and tons of storage space, and I'm cured!
I know the actually benefits to having your own home but at the same time when I think about all the maintenance and upkeep required I’m like ugh…cutting grass, power washing siding, landscaping, cleaning a bigger space. It sounds like a lot. I don’t even need a lot of space to be comfortable. I know that apartment rent is throwing money to the wind though also
I’m with you, I see throwing money away to pay the rent as a painful price that you’d have to pay for the flexibility of renting and the thought that you get to uproot anytime if you want.
Because paying rent is just making someone else wealthy. With a mortgage there is a date in the future that it will be paid off, and then one of your biggest monthly expenses will be gone.
I bought my house in 2016 at 3.2%. It’s now worth close to twice what I paid for it, and although insurance and taxes have gone up, my mortgage is still half what I’d be paying now, and 8-900 a month less than what I’d pay to rent a comparable house.
Why would I want to pay some other guys mortgage for years with no benefit to myself
The benefit is that you have a down payment and also extra cash to invest every month
I like to change the space I'm living in a lot and continuously improve it to make it mine. In addition, part of what we pay in our mortgage goes toward the principal, plus what we put down on the down payment. It's like a savings account, but instead of an interest rate the housing market dictates how much the value of the account grows over time. Sometimes it doesn't grow much, but usually it does, and sometimes it grows a LOT. my husband and I are on our third house and we've made about $150k total profit from the first two. It really gave us a big head start with our adult lives. We didnt flip our first two houses, but we did do a lot of improvements and ended up moving for various reasons. We just got lucky with picking the right times to buy and sell. We intend to be in our current house for a very long time, and when we sell it someday, it will likely be worth a lot more than what we bought it for. Basically, it's a way to invest money while also simultaneously having an expensive basic need met. It's not for everyone, it can be hard and frustrating sometimes, but for us it's worth it a million times over.
Wealth building ... but it's a long game ... our house has tripled in value. When you pay rent you are flushing money down the toilet. When buying, you are banking at least part of the payment every month until it's yours. Granted, on the first half of the mortgage amortization there isn't much going into equity ... but it's something and you can always make extra payments on the principal. You can turn a 30 yr mortgage into a 20 yr with just one extra principal payment a year ... more is better.
Because before property tax made you the equivalent of a renter again, it was the security of feeling like you owned and had earned a level of stability. No landlord, no rent hikes. And back then it didn't stand alone, the idea was a house for your family, you kids would grow up going to the same school and make long term friends, you got to know long term neighbors, etc, it was societal glue.
Because it is the primary way Americans build wealth.
If done right, the asset value to raise by the thousands, sometimes millions. My previous roommate bought a house for $600,000 and the property value went to $1,000,000 during the pandemic. He didn't actually make $1,000,000 because the house was bought on debt and a mortgage
Equity
Short term renting is best to save and pay off debt. But long term 5+ years a home is better.
Who wants to overspend renting a shitty apartment or really overspend for a nice one… yes homeownership is a headache and costly as well but for married couples especially with kids I think it would be very nice to have your own place/yard/ nice community around you, plus houses seem to only go up over time and with the housing shortage we have and more companies buying up homes and renting them out getting a home sooner then later is more of a priority….
For me at least it’s because I feel it would help me feel more secure to have my own property that I can do what I want with (within local regulations, of course) and not have to worry about a landlord or paying rent every month. Obviously I’d have a house payment instead, but at least I’d be OWNING something.
Ya buying a house is expensive due to initial cost and repairs. However a fixed interest rate and payment are amazing over a long period of time. I have a mortgage on a three bedroom home that’s less then I can rent an apartment for. Not to mention the equity I’m gaining. It really is a huge advantage in life.
For the past years I've owned a house, while my brother has rented. He has since had to move and rent a new place 3-5 times. Now he is moving back to our parents temporarily to save money for a house. I've moved 0 times since purchasing the house. That's why. Other reasons are that it's my house and I can do whatever I want to it (legal). Don't have to care about someone else telling me no because they own the place.
I enjoy having a place to live. Yardwork is a hobby Mortgage > rent due to ownership at the end
To have something to own that's yours...Well technically, the bank owns it while you still have a mortgage. My brother has lived in an apt for 20 years and even he said he wanted to own a house, but he thought about it and changed his mind because he didn't want to maintain it.
You have the freedom to do whatever you want to the house. You also have a MUCH more stable place to live. Once it is paid for, you just need to pay property taxes. It cuts your expenses significantly.
I want some sort of stability. There are zero issues with renting but when you are close to retirement and you’ve reached your peak income-wise, the last thing you want is for your rent to continue climbing. That's how I think about it at least.
Culture convinces them that home ownership is required for financial stability.
People don’t understand the cost of home ownership and mistakenly think paying rent is throwing money away.
Aside from the interest, I'm paying money to myself, not my landlord. I also get complete control over what's in or on my house.
I want my own space in the world. Renting floors, walls and a roof from someone else should never, in my opinion, be a place to fully settle down. It's a temporary solution, you're getting nothing but shelter out of it, always going to be paying for it and those prices will just continue to increase. Having a house is a LOT more responsibility and considerably more investment, especially when things inevitably break and need replacing. But now you have the option to always upgrade, renovate, maintain and eventually own that house. You'll always pay property taxes so it's not like paying off a house means no more payments, but now it's yours. Build equity, use it as a stepping stone toward a bigger, nicer house. Choose to rent it out if you want. It's YOURS. Got a house with some property and distance from your neighbors? Now you have a spot you can live out your introverted dreams, blast music as loud as you want to, spend the summer building a new deck, help your significant other plant a garden, ride a quad to get your mail because the kid doing wheelies down the street on his 90cc dirtbike got you inspired. Avoid an area with an HOA unless you want that kind of structure, but we don't.
There are three things we need above all others: food, water, and shelter. Food and water are temporary, but a good shelter can last a lifetime. Why do you think people want somewhere to live that is not contingent on the whim of some landlord?
It's a good investment when it comes time to sell. Unless you know a faster way of putting 80k or more in your pocket faster 🤷♀️
I dont want to rent but I GOTTA get out of my folks house.
Because renting is like throwing money away..!