> No, the statement is completely true Why don't we say this about other expenditures? Am I throwing my money away when I buy dinner and not a cow? Did I throw my money away by buying a carrot and not farmland? I don't think the statement is true or false, it's just meaningless.
You somehow missed the second part of that sentence: "No, the statement is completely true: 100% of your rent money goes to someone else, and you also don't get any asset to sell later on." The oft-repeated statement that "renting is throwing your money" is an implicit contrast to owning a home, where the mortgage payment "builds equity" in your asset that can be sold later. "Throwing money away" means you don't get…
No, I read that part of the sentence. I don't know why you'd assume I didn't. Should I claim you didn't even read my entire response?
I've never heard someone claim I am throwing away money when I buy something consumable except rent. It's a stupid statement that doesn't convey any useful information.
Most folks rent before they buy, and so they are aware of the hazards of renting.
An important qualification: if you rented as a kid, and now your kids are old enough to rent, your maybe-not-horrible experience is dated and probably no longer applicable. Apartments have largely gone corporate, and I assume also been taken over by private equity. Even cell-phone companies could learn a thing or two from their tactics.
I have had very good experiences with corporate apartments. They tend to have their shit together. Compared to renting from some random old guy that wants to “fix things himself”
On the other hand, renting comes with hidden (and some not so hidden) costs too. The main one for me is the inherent precariousness that comes with renting. You don’t know how much longer you’re going to be able to stay in your apartment, whether that be due to rent hikes or the landlord deciding that they want to give the apartment to their nephew or any number of other things. The constant low level stress of knowi…
Why not just sign a longer term lease? Most landlords would love that.
On the other hand, renting comes with hidden (and some not so hidden) costs too. The main one for me is the inherent precariousness that comes with renting. You don’t know how much longer you’re going to be able to stay in your apartment, whether that be due to rent hikes or the landlord deciding that they want to give the apartment to their nephew or any number of other things. The constant low level stress of knowi…
If I could design society, we’d all live in RVs or other trailer type things, own the structure and rent/buy land as appropriate. But I’m aware this is an unusual opinion.
It just seems nice to be able to customize the structure without being tied to a particular location.
Aren't quite a few of these concerns alleviated by owning a condo?
Condos basically just force you to pay for the ongoing maintenance that the author mentioned, but with the downside of not actually having any control over the quality of the work or the decision making process at all unless you're on the condo board. Condos are generally the worst of both worlds, because you have almost all the responsibilities of homeownership combined with nearly all of the restrictions of renting…
You can always go join your condo board meetings though. In my experience most HOA boards are filled with people who have seen horror stories of HOAs and don't want to live in a place with a bad one.
Sure sometimes they do make bad decisions, but you're welcome to just show up to their board meeting and give them some advice.
On the other hand, renting comes with hidden (and some not so hidden) costs too. The main one for me is the inherent precariousness that comes with renting. You don’t know how much longer you’re going to be able to stay in your apartment, whether that be due to rent hikes or the landlord deciding that they want to give the apartment to their nephew or any number of other things. The constant low level stress of knowi…
Rent only goes up.
Inflation means pretty much all prices always go up. This statement is not very informative on its own since we care about relative prices.
With a mortgage, you are forced to save money. In other words you have no way around being disciplined. So yes in theory you could probably make more money with aggressive investing, but chances are most people would risk too much and lose a lot and never have the mental discipline of saving the excess they have no matter what happens in their life.
I made plenty of money (and still do) holding US treasuries and other safe investments. You don't need to gamble on stocks to have income from cash which offsets rent.
Unless you think landlords are running a charity, some part of your mortgage is going to them as profit (over a large enough sample of renters anyways), and some percentage of your rent is covering 'bad tenants' (which you're not, right?).
Their entire improvement section is also something renters tend to not think about. It's a weird situation when renting that you aren't incentivized in any way to make improvements to where you live. You might not even be allowed to.
With home ownership though, things like a modern kitchen, a shed, new laundry machines not only better your life today but also (likely) have some value add. Though you also get the luxury of being able to ignore the value add if you just really want to paint that room neon pink for some reason.
Beyond the financials, the psychological impact of both being able to make greater-than-superficial changes, and having extremely predictable payments for years without worrying about substantial rent increases, is substantial. I redid/improved the bathroom to exactly what I wanted. I renovated the kitchen. I added paneling to the walls. I added a few outlets to rooms that needed more. I wouldn't do these things in a…
> I redid/improved... We are extending the fence in our backyard. However, getting rid of the parking means the project will likely detract from the value of the home. But since we don't have a car, let alone two, it makes sense for us to do the project anyway. Despite the warning of our realtor when we purchased the home. I've noticed a lot of folks are afraid to personalize their homes because of concern about the…
Once upon a time I had a car, a daily driver. I kept it clean, vacuum/wash/polish with crazy waxes and the works. Stressed out about people riding with dirty shoes, drinks, etc., and when I asked myself why, the usual self-justification was "ah it's for the resale value." Hearing relatives get charged various fees at lease returns just fed that attitude, even though I owned the car outright. One day it was time to replace the car, so I brought it to the dealer as tradein. They scanned the VIN, looked in their computer, and just quoted me a price without ever looking at the car, either cosmetics or mechanicals. That was the day I decided that I own the cars, not the other way around, and this attitude slowly expanded to real estate too ;). So now there is a clover field in our front yard and I ripped out the irrigation too. When we eventually sell this home in 2060 the buyers can take it or leave it