Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Is It Better to Rent or Buy?

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 256 posts

Re: Is It Better to Rent or Buy?

#121

Post by refurb »

nilkn wrote: post #22
hashberry wrote: post #15

Two important adjustments when using this: "Investment return rate" -- Only 4%? An index fund will return higher than that. "Monthly common fees" -- Required if you are considering buying a condo. This changes the per month rent comparison dollar-for-dollar.

> Only 4%? An index fund will return higher than that. Just like homes will always go up?

That's what makes me laugh when I talk to people who are looking to buy a home. Despite the housing crash of 2007, when I ask them what would happen if housing prices go down, they get this disturbed look on their faces and say "nah! not in this city!!".

Re: Is It Better to Rent or Buy?

#122

Post by blue11 »

Buying a home is not an investment, it's a quality of life improvement. Something that I usually don't see mentioned in rent-vs-buy arguments is that the housing stock that's available for sale can be very different from what's available on the rental market. The two markets are similar only at the low end. If you want something nicer, the chance that you are going to find exactly what you want is very slim. Even "luxury" apartments for example typically have beige carpet, cheap appliances, cheap bathroom fixtures, etc. For a private landlord it doesn't make sense to upgrade the property above the bare minimum either. It's just not cost effective. And if you are looking to rent a single family house your choice will be even more limited. Now, if you buy your home, with some reasonably priced improvements you can improve your level of comfort significantly. Of course, not everybody cares about these things. If you don't care too much about where you live then renting makes perfect sense.

Re: Is It Better to Rent or Buy?

#125

Post by webwright »

larrys wrote: post #110
webwright wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You can do that when you own as well. You have to sell your house. " This is so incredibly wrong. Selling a house can be a massive and expensive undertaking. Assuming agents are involved, you can expect to pay 6-9% of the value of the house in costs (agent fees, closing costs, etc), assuming the buyer doesn't find something that is against code or something that is starting to fail (furnace, roof, etc). You buy a ho…

"You buy a house tomorrow for $200k and want to sell it in 18 months because of a job opportunity or family emergency?" Well it goes without saying (and this is always true for anything you read on the web, right?) that the specifics of each persons circumstances need to be taken into account. Along those lines there are people that: a) Own their own business so they aren't employed by anyone and don't have a job opp…

I own two houses and I agree with you. If you're in great financial shape and you'd be happy buying a house, buy a house.

The vast majority of folks (americans, anyways) AREN'T in good financial shape, however, and often overestimate the permanence of their current situation. If you have to sell your house inside 5 years, you're in iffy shape. It can be financially catastrophic if you have to move during a down market. About 30% of folks are out of the house by the end of their 6th year, when they probably thought it was going to be their home for decades (source: http://www.nahb.org/generic.aspx?genericContentID=110770&cha... ).

Re: Is It Better to Rent or Buy?

#126

Post by caseyf7 »

mbostock wrote: post #10
aet wrote: post #3

I think the NYT has redone this interactive piece like 50 times now.

Surely you jest! The previous version was four years ago (in 2010) and was implemented in Flash. Screenshot: https://twitter.com/driven_by_data/status/469498632027537408

I'm looking forward to seeing more flash replaced with d3!

Re: Is It Better to Rent or Buy?

#127

Post by femto »

larrys wrote: post #48
tolmasky wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you rent, you can leave whenever the heck you want and then go live wherever the heck you want. That's true freedom and to some people - myself included - worth every penny. Its really interesting the different things people value. I value not fundamentally worrying if there were to be an earthquake and this place would be destroyed. I value one day waking up and deciding, hey, I think I want to go try living in P…

"If you rent, you can leave whenever the heck you want and then go live wherever the heck you want. " You can do that when you own as well. You have to sell your house. After all you can't just get out of a lease whenever you want it goes according to a fixed time period. You have constraints as far as lease renewal, term and things like that. If you own you can decide at any point to sell (although certain times of…

Or, you retain ownership of your house and become a landlord, whilst being a tenant in your location of choice.

Edit: Here the question isn't whether you should buy a house, but whether you should live in the house you buy?

Re: Is It Better to Rent or Buy?

#128

Post by seanmcdirmid »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #31
Frozenlock wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you still need to pay taxes (rent) to your municipality (landlord). So if I summarize, you can't do what you want with it and you need to pay your landlord. Why are people calling this 'owning' a house?

There are countries that lack property taxes, but they tend to be communist (china) and you are only buying a 99 year lease. Also, the lack of property taxes doesn't work very well, as it encourages speculation and then sitting on then property doing much with it waiting for values to rise. Property taxes enforces mandatory deprecation (you have to make it productive enough to at least pay the tax) and also funds thi…

humannature, you are probably hellbanned, so I can't reply to your comment directly.

Ok, yes, you are right...70 years, not 99; though there is some suspicion/optimism that the government will extend the leases indefinitely. The property tax in CQ/SH is only on second properties and easily avoided right now through transfers or sham divorces. It will be interesting to see if the gov is really serious about property taxes.

Re: Is It Better to Rent or Buy?

#130

Post by pessimizer »

hashberry wrote: post #26
pessimizer wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get ready for lousy stock returns http://money.cnn.com/2014/05/21/investing/stock-returns-low-... "The Shiller price to earnings ratio was designed by Nobel Prize winning economist Robert Shiller to give investors a sense of whether stocks are cheap or expensive. It compares stock prices, as measured by the S&P 500 index, with inflation-adjusted corporate earnings over the past 10 years. "The magic number at the mome…

In the short-term, perhaps. Returns long-term are high than 3%-4%.

Depends on which term. Retirement roulette.
Post reply on HN