21–30 of 103 posts
As a brit born a few years too late for this to be a sensible possibility at all I'm sick and tired of the social pressure from every angle telling me I'm not a real adult until I have a mortgage.
Your response to that should be: "you are not a responsible adult until you are debt free." That is actually one of the secrets to a lower stress longer lasting life IMO.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your response to that should be: "you are not a responsible adult until you are debt free." That is actually one of the secrets to a lower stress longer lasting life IMO.
There is a stress in renting too. You never know if your landlord might want to change things resulting in a request for you to move out. eg he wants relatives to have the apartment, etc.
I don't think home ownership is a decision to be made lightly and I disagree with the idea presented in the article that it should be done to make money, but there are definitely numerous benefits and the idea of a mortgage being somehow evil just because it's debt is extreme. As another commenter mentioned, debt is a tool which can be used poorly or wisely.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your response to that should be: "you are not a responsible adult until you are debt free." That is actually one of the secrets to a lower stress longer lasting life IMO.
You're not a responsible adult until you recognize debt is a tool. You can use the tool well or poorly but it is just a tool.
And if we get more productive disposable income will go up and that will feed into land prices.
All the rentier need do is wait.
edit: would love to hear the counter to this from whomever downvoted me - it's a fact that with our system productivity improvements flow into land prices therefore speculating on land sees you capture these gains.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your response to that should be: "you are not a responsible adult until you are debt free." That is actually one of the secrets to a lower stress longer lasting life IMO.
There is a stress in renting too. You never know if your landlord might want to change things resulting in a request for you to move out. eg he wants relatives to have the apartment, etc.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually, as someone renting several flats in the UK during the last few years I'm still shocked by the lack of rights I have as a tenant. For example, landlords can enter your property by only giving you a 24-hour notice in writing. I have had real state companies entering my flat without prior notice to show it to potential new tenants several times. Other countries in the EU would take these incidents very serious…
Those landlords are breaking the law (and the terms of your tenancy) and I believe you can file a report with the police that will get them into very hot water with their local council -- potentially fined and booted off the register of landlords (which means it'd be an offense for them to let any flats out at all). Source: my sister is a landlord.
An Englishman's home is his castle? Maybe it's simply that owning a home lets you do more with than renting one. You can add extensions, remodel much of it, potentially demolish the entire thing and rebuild it, that sort of thing.
It's a totally toxic mix that is killing living standards.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your response to that should be: "you are not a responsible adult until you are debt free." That is actually one of the secrets to a lower stress longer lasting life IMO.
Relevant: http://i.imgur.com/eIM5o.jpg
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually, as someone renting several flats in the UK during the last few years I'm still shocked by the lack of rights I have as a tenant. For example, landlords can enter your property by only giving you a 24-hour notice in writing. I have had real state companies entering my flat without prior notice to show it to potential new tenants several times. Other countries in the EU would take these incidents very serious…
Those landlords are breaking the law (and the terms of your tenancy) and I believe you can file a report with the police that will get them into very hot water with their local council -- potentially fined and booted off the register of landlords (which means it'd be an offense for them to let any flats out at all). Source: my sister is a landlord.
> My parents rented the family home in Paris for 45 years, and although they did buy a seaside flat and a cottage in the country in the 1970s, their value has only kept pace with inflation American home prices only started rising, in real terms, after WWII [1]. This is driven by people wanting to drive more income to buying land, i.e. treating land as a superior good. Growing government intervention is also a cause.…
> In the long-run, real house prices appreciate at the rate of inflation. Some one should tell this to Canadians. Since the early-mid 2000s, house prices have been rising much quicker than inflation, to the point where people think homes are an 'investment' that will always rise, leading to a massive housing bubble (also propped up by foreign buyers, many of whom are using land to launder money gained through corrupt…
The thing to remember about that city is that incomes are pretty low (unlike sv)