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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

#231

Post by throwaway0a5e »

dragonwriter wrote: post #230
throwaway0a5e wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Move the decimal one place to the right if you're DIYing. Most people are going to DIY 1/3 to 3/4 the stuff on that list depending on whether or not their checking account is fat enough to easily write the check in the first place. Edit: move the decimal left.

> Move the decimal one place to the right if you're DIYing. I’m not sure of this is a mistake or commentary on the cost of not doing it right the first time.

Meant to say left.

In my experience you can screw things up several times over before you come close to the cost of paying someone else.

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

#232

Post by jb775 »

anonAndOn wrote: post #196
hnhousingthrow wrote: post #188

These calculators don't reflect the reality/absurdity of the current economy. Anecdotal, but I bought a house in eastern California last year for $600k, now Zillow says it's worth $835k. Also, I'll unlikely ever be able to afford a house in the Bay Area, even though I make $220k/year at a company there. Still don't know what I'll do if my employer makes us return to the SF office in a few months. Relatedly, a ~70 yea…

I submit the housing market of Phoenix, Arizona as an example of peak bubble. There are numerous houses on the market today that were previously sold... ~30 days ago. This feels more ludicrous than the speculative housing bubble of '07.

The fact that you and everyone else claim we're in a peak bubble is evidence to me that we're not in a peak bubble.

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

#233

Post by rory »

stonemetal12 wrote: post #150
pessimizer wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Probably want to allow for the possibility of rent rises over time. Isn't that counting inflation twice?

No, rents go up and down for reasons other than inflation.

That is another type of inflation, but it's an interesting point that you may care about both the general consumer inflation rate (for its interaction with the mortgage interest rate) and the rent price inflation rate.

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

#234

Post by jb775 »

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…

The people buying are millennials (currently the largest generation) that are settling down in their location of choice.

I predicted this would have happened slowly over the next 15 years, but covid and inner-city violence triggered a flight to the suburbs....hence increases in real estate.

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

#235

Post by rory »

hirsin wrote: post #78
madcaptenor wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is nice. I definitely played around with some calculators like this when I was deciding to buy a house a few years ago. Off the top of my head, some things I'd add to make this more useful to a wide audience: - I don't know what I pay in state income and sales taxes. But I do know my income and my state's tax rate; income tax could be derived from that. I'm not sure how you'd estimate sales tax, though - you'd h…

Maintenance cost likely scales with both size and cost. Size, for obvious reasons, and cost because the labor/materials cost of a repair is likely correlated with housing prices in the area. You then have to account for the portion of cost that's already correlated with size... +1 to mortgage length. We heavily pivoted our decision to buy on getting a 7 year ARM because my friend and I knew we wouldn't grow old toget…

In my experience as a small-time landlord, maintenance does scale somewhat with cost, but not linearly. A lot of big costs on the materials side (like say, a furnace) are more or less fixed. At least, repairs don't cost 4x as much in a 800k house as they do in a 200k house of the same size.

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

#237

Post by duped »

1123581321 wrote: post #104
duped wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean this is the definition of a strawman argument. Whether it's 10 or 20% down payment is not that significant. Even 5% is un-affordable. The median sale price of a home was $347,000 last month (0). 5% down on that is $17,350, accounting for closing costs you're going to need around $24,000 in cash to purchase a home. Which isn't all that much money, except if you consider that it's more than 1/3rd of the median f…

5% is not not 3x the median savings balance of families seriously trying to buy a home. That’s setting aside that lower income families tend to live near lower priced homes. Lower down payments meaningfully increase access to real estate. It matters hugely to be able to accelerate purchase timing by years, or decades.

This reads a bit like "if you exclude all the people that can't afford a home, then the data suggests everyone can afford a home."

Of course lower down payments increase access to real estate. The problem is half of all Americans can't even afford closing costs, let alone a down payment.

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

#238

Post by missingrib »

dragontamer wrote: post #213
ramraj07 wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, almost no one I’ve seen has ever spent less by moving to their own home. They’ll typically end up spending at least half of what they spent as rent just on things other than the mortgage (which would typically be much higher than the rent by itself). Now of course they often would get a larger, nicer place that’s exactly what they wanted, but let’s not kid ourselves that home ownership is somehow cheaper. It neve…

But you don't "lose" or "spend" the equity portion of your mortgage bill. That's the difference. If you have a $2500/month mortgage, by year 10 or so that's probably $1000 equity + $1500 interest. The "interest" portion gets tax-deducted (so you get a portion of it back), while the $1000 equity is literally yours. When you sell the house, that's the portion you get back. --------- So really, $2500/month mortgage (aft…

You are ignoring costs that are truly just lost and don't exist with a rental payment, like repairs and insurance and HOA, etc.

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

#239

Post by throwaway0a5e »

bachmeier wrote: post #46
swimorsinka wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huge +1 to this. Don't get me wrong, I've been in my house for 10 years, and I probably won't go back to renting, but I think most people wildly underestimate these things. In the first couple of years I remember getting so irritated by all the time it took to take care of the house and yard. Nowadays, I've gotten used to it, and I view it as a welcome distraction from work, but that definitely wasn't true in the beg…

> In the first couple of years I remember getting so irritated by all the time it took to take care of the house and yard. It's always been a problem for me. My work keeps me so busy (that's how I can afford the house) and much of the limited free time I have goes to my son's activities. The only thing that allows me to get it done is that my son is old enough to help me. > I don't think I've had a single year where…

Maintenance and upkeep costs are so noisy. Free CL push mower and $100 weed whacker is being compared to professional landscape service. Quotes from professionals are all over the place. I've never spent more than ~$500 at a time maintaining my house but there's nothing I wouldn't DIY.

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

#240

Post by shock-value »

RhysU wrote: post #214
293984j29384 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Isn't that the trick where the price looks good initially and then it goes up wickedly after 12 months because they won't give you free months when you renew?

The price can always be raised at the conclusion of a leasing period so there isn't really any unusual trickery involved. If anything the disclosure that the free months apply only to the first leasing period is less deceptive than raising the rent without any warning upon lease renewal.
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