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Show HN: Should I Get a House? a better rent vs. buy calculator

shouldigetahouse.com

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Re: Show HN: Should I Get a House? a better rent vs. buy calculator

#151

Post by BeetleB »

bachmeier wrote: post #61
anomaloustho wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being in a unique position of renting out properties that I own while simultaneously renting, it seems like some of this is taken a little out of proportion. My net experience is that the burden of dealing with said landlord to get something fixed or maintained is roughly similar to fixing it yourself with equal pros and cons on both sides. Consider a $150 repair for your AC going out in 95F weather, 70% humidity. La…

> Consider a $150 repair for your AC These are precisely the examples I was cursing after I bought my house. They were the ones existing homeowners always talked about. A $150 repair for the AC is nothing. The prospective homeowner needs to think about things like: "Your roof is shot." The lowest bid is $15,000. Check is due before they leave your property. "Your trees are dying." Cost of cutting them out and replaci…

> "Your roof is shot." The lowest bid is $15,000. Check is due before they leave your property.

When you buy the house, you should have had an idea on how much it costs, and saved for it. $15K over 30 years is nothing.

Also, of course this depends on where you live and how big your roof is, but for my house, $15K is overpriced. I recently got bids and while the numbers varied quite a bit, $11K was more typical. Of course, there are people who quote as high as $25K - learn to shop around.

And none of them wanted all the money up front.

> And what you learn is that it's a special type of gas water heater that costs $2500 and up.

I think $2500 is a fairly standard price.

One definitely needs to research these costs before buying! Especially for:

Roof

Garage doors

Water heater

Furnace

Central AC

Any pending yard work (like dying trees)

Any kind of code related work you may need to do (asbestos, old electric wiring, etc).

Re: Show HN: Should I Get a House? a better rent vs. buy calculator

#152

Post by BeetleB »

alach11 wrote: post #8
pestatije wrote: post #6

House prices are not included in inflation estimates, rental prices are. That's another thing that should be considered.

There's a separate parameter to control the increase in house prices. My assumption is that houses have tended to increase faster than inflation in most markets.

> My assumption is that houses have tended to increase faster than inflation in most markets.

In recent years. In the long run - not much. In the really long run, it's about 1-2% above inflation. Of course, it's hyper-dependent on the locale.

Re: Show HN: Should I Get a House? a better rent vs. buy calculator

#153

Post by autarch »

mauvehaus wrote: post #119

You get old enough, and you get tired of somebody else making decisions from afar that affect your day to day life with no real consequences to them. Little things like the kitchen layout being moronic and having zero drawers get old when it isn't your choice to remodel or live with it. And while it's nice to say "just move", let's not forget that moving costs a couple months rent and a massive time investment to fin…

> I'm pretty convinced most people buy because they're either tired of the bullshit that comes with renting or want to buy into a specific school district, not because they're worried about making a return on their investment.

Another big factor is noise. A detached house is going to be quieter than most apartments in a shared building. That was the big reason we moved to a house. I'm a light sleeper and noise from people walking around upstairs was driving me nuts. Moving to a house with no one walking around above me was a huge improvement in my sleep.

Edit: Yes, you can rent houses too, but at least where I live (Minneapolis) this doesn't seem to be very common.

Re: Show HN: Should I Get a House? a better rent vs. buy calculator

#154

Post by BrissyCoder »

For me the quality of life, security and mental health that comes from owning trumps whatever the results a calculator like this is going to say. It doesn't factor in the anguish from having a family and seeing 30 other groups inspecting every single decent rental open home. Has been like that the last 3 years or so in Brisbane.

Re: Show HN: Should I Get a House? a better rent vs. buy calculator

#155

Post by someelephant »

alach11 wrote: post #2

My wife wants to buy a house, but I'm unable to make life decisions without trying to minmax them. I wasn't satisfied with existing rent vs. buy calculators, so I decided to build my own! I'm not a developer, so I apologize if it's a little rough looking... Some things it takes into account: - The actual rate of return on your down payment and extra costs of a house - Inflation - Itemized deductions on your taxes - T…

Life opportunity cost. When you buy a house you are making a big commitment. It will guide the path of your life. These days with remote work that's less and more of an issue. What if you would be happier living in the south of France?

Re: Show HN: Should I Get a House? a better rent vs. buy calculator

#156

Post by HWR_14 »

mattgibson wrote: post #40

These calculators seem to miss the point for me. If I spend less overall by renting, I don't care because I can't pass the property as an inheritance to my kids. If I buy, they get a house for free when I pass on. Also, if I rent, I have to continue to pay the same (high) rents through retirement where my income will likely drop drastically once I stop full time work. The aim of buying is to be mortgage-free when you…

The calculators are used for "Downpayment is HHHHHH, mortgage is XXXX/month. Renting is (XXXX-YYYY) a month. HHHHH and (XXXX-YYYY)/month invested in [other investment] for 30 years = Z,ZZZ,ZZZ." Then you compare all the Z's the the estimated price of the house.

And the more it includes (expected rent changes, repairs, HOA fees) the better the math becomes.

Re: Show HN: Should I Get a House? a better rent vs. buy calculator

#157

Post by majormajor »

alach11 wrote: post #125
anotherman554 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best/ most powerful rent vs buy calculator I am aware of is the one offered here: https://michaelbluejay.com/house/rentvsbuy.html browsing it might give you some ideas of features you can add to your calculator. It's also a small thing but having the choice to select the downpayment based on percentage down might be nice. I don't know why your calculator tells me getting a house is not worth even if it thinks the…

The determination of whether to buy the house is based on the calculated rate of return. So even if you make a profit, if the time horizon is large you’d be better off investing that money in stocks. The UI doesn’t make that clear enough.

> The determination of whether to buy the house is based on the calculated rate of return. So even if you make a profit, if the time horizon is large you’d be better off investing that money in stocks.

Can you give a more detailed example? What time horizon are you picturing? After you pay off the house you lose the leverage advantage of returns on selling a house you bought with a mortgage vs selling stocks, but you also stop having to pay the mortgage at all while you'd still be renting, likely at a far higher market rate, so looking at the post-mortgage-payoff curves, it's hard for me to see where the invested down payment + (mortgage + tax + upkeep - minus - rent) returns would be expected to be high enough to make up for that.

(The more rational counterargument, though, would likely be around diversification? Better to have land + stocks then just one...)

Re: Show HN: Should I Get a House? a better rent vs. buy calculator

#158

Post by pricecomstock »

293984j29384 wrote: post #120
WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #98

In 2021, the buy vs rent decision is a little like Should I buy a whale ranch on Mars or Venus? I suggest that the decision whether to rent a house might want to take into account that each rental ad is getting hundreds of applicants, each day - with few new ads showing up. ref: https://www.militarytimes.com/pay-benefits/mil-money/2021/07... ref: https://www.amisun.com/2021/06/27/once-in-a-generation-housi... ref: ht…

Why would you assume it's to rent a house? It's a great time to be an apartment renter in big markets like NYC. I just got 2 months free on my lease renewal and I've seen even better deals out there but I didn't want to move.

At least in the part I'm looking at, this was still true at the end of May but is not even close now.

Re: Show HN: Should I Get a House? a better rent vs. buy calculator

#159

Post by sokoloff »

mauvehaus wrote: post #119

You get old enough, and you get tired of somebody else making decisions from afar that affect your day to day life with no real consequences to them. Little things like the kitchen layout being moronic and having zero drawers get old when it isn't your choice to remodel or live with it. And while it's nice to say "just move", let's not forget that moving costs a couple months rent and a massive time investment to fin…

If you're worried about losing a couple months' rent, kitchen remodels are not for you...

Re: Show HN: Should I Get a House? a better rent vs. buy calculator

#160

Post by bluefirebrand »

sokoloff wrote: post #159
mauvehaus wrote: post #119

You get old enough, and you get tired of somebody else making decisions from afar that affect your day to day life with no real consequences to them. Little things like the kitchen layout being moronic and having zero drawers get old when it isn't your choice to remodel or live with it. And while it's nice to say "just move", let's not forget that moving costs a couple months rent and a massive time investment to fin…

If you're worried about losing a couple months' rent, kitchen remodels are not for you...

A kitchen remodel is done once and probably not again until you sell and someone else moves in.

Moving rentals every time something annoys you could be very frequent.

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