201–210 of 901 posts
I zero'd out almost all these costs by building a shack myself and leaving it uninsured. Maintenance cost almost zero because I own all the tools and much the spare materials already form building the house. Cost of house $60,000 post COVID, there is a similar ready-built house next to me for sale almost $300,000.
>"renting is just throwing your money away" 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…
This works great until people are priced out of the market dropping house prices a bit and then you've just got a lot of debt and houses worth less, you go bankrupt and someone _really_ wealthy pick up all your houses at a discount.
You can at least hope that the really wealthy guy didn't get that way selling a "get rich in the property market" book.
Buying a home is a hedge against inflation. Renting has no similar protections. Your choices are, "Pay the (increased) rent" or "Move"
Rent control changes the math on this. Obviously location dependent but it can have a significant effect.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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”
Corporate apartments raise their rents in lockstep with the market, whereas at least some randos will leave it stable for some years in a row.
We were quiet, predictable, don't-rock-the-boat tenants, and the rando owner mentioned that they valued that enough that raising rents wasn't worth the potential risk of new tenants who might cause them more hassle.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There’s also a psychological benefit of not having to worry about most problems. Sink broke? Call landlord to fix. Roof leaking? Call landlord to fix. And so on. You never have an unexpected $20k repair show up. And while I agree that it’s nice to customize things to your preferences, this has a downside in that it’s easy to get carried away and overspend. Might as well get the nicer finishes when you are remodeling,…
> There’s also a psychological benefit of not having to worry about most problems. Sink broke? Call landlord to fix. Roof leaking? Call landlord to fix. And so on. You never have an unexpected $20k repair show up. I've never understood why people argue that the model of appealing to a landlord to perform house work is psychologically superior to doing that same work yourself. As a tenant, you have an inherently somew…
Just something as simple as "that ceiling fan doesn't work so well, and squeaks once in a while when on high" can easily be remedied yourself when owning the house by just going buying and installing a new ceiling fan.
Regardless of how handy one is, with a landlord that's generally not allowed without permission, the landlord often won't install as nice of one as you might like, etc.
This goes for every fixture that's not part of the rental. Major appliances, flooring, even door knobs... Like if you suddenly want an electronic keypad on your deadbolt.
Of course, this flexibility has to be something you care about. Not everyone does, but for those of us that do...
This isn't something you get renting and it effectively lowers your monthly payment.
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…
“Extremely predictable payments” - I don’t own a home, so I don’t know about this - I have heard mostly horror stories about HOA. Can they hike maintenance fees arbitrarily? Also, what about insurance? Last I read, at least in FL, insurance cost is out of control, is that still true?
As for the insurance, the best advice is just to avoid high-risk areas like flooding zones.
Ben Felix, a Canadian portfolio manager that does personal finance videos and podcast, has been arguing for years that rent versus buy is often a wash financially, and that you should make the decision for non-financial resasons. * recent 2026 video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aU7v87EhDBI * 2025a: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4H9LL7A-nQ * 2025b: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBG-g1CKfgs * 2021: https://www…
If you can buy low and sell high it’s worth it. Especially if you’re positioned to buy when you can lock in low mortgage rates. Above 6% you might be better off putting your down payment into the stock market and renting. It’s also more likely that you’ll feel good about spending money to improve the home if you think you can get the money back when you sell. (And then you get to live in a more pleasant place for yea…
"Locking in" a rate for multiple decades is mostly (only?) an American thing:
* https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15214842.2020.1...
* https://www.investopedia.com/why-your-30-year-mortgage-exist...
* https://www.cnbc.com/2024/05/07/why-the-30-year-fixed-rate-m...
* https://www.deeded.ca/blog/why-canada-doesnt-have-30-year-fi...
While a ≥20 year amortization period is common, the mortgage term is generally shorter (2-5, 10 years) is most other places.
The benefit of owning a home is almost always psychological, not financial. If you take the money you'd use for a down payment and mortgage and invest it instead (after paying rent) you end up in about the same place. But the psychological benefits can be huge. You have much greater control over the place you spend most of your time. You can change it to your liking. You don't have to worry about rent increases or ow…