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

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

shouldigetahouse.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 424 posts

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

#261

Post by throwaway803453 »

MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #229
chiefalchemist wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of age, needs and priorities change. There's no joy in moving, but it's still better than the time suck of hiring a contractor, electrician, and/or plumber. AND having to pay them. Owning is nice. But it's more limited and more time consuming. There's a cost associated with that.

I dont like the process of moving, but the cleanup, and starting again is a wonderful relief from a previous burden.

And the elimination/ebay'ing of items that you realize you haven't touched or unpacked since your last move.

Arguably untouched junk in American households has better housing than most people in this world.

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

#262

Post by robotresearcher »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #253
freeone3000 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A majority, or even a large minority, of sales cannot be above market price, by definition. If there are enough cash buyers that it's being difficult to buy at a given price, the market price is clearly somewhere above it.

You seem to be leveraging specific terminology in order to obscure the larger point - that buyers & renters are making substantially higher offers than homeowners are looking for. It is unclear how that helps move this discussion along.

You said ‘market price’ but you meant ‘asking price’ (UK) or ‘list price’ (US).

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

#263

Post by cperciva »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #251
cperciva wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buying isn't any better with sales going to all-cash buyers who are paying way above and beyond market. If that's the price houses are selling for, that is the market price.

> If that's the price houses are selling for, that is the market price. I'll rephrase it this way. Cash buyers are paying way above and beyond what the house was listed for. Likewise prospective renters are offering rents above what is advertised.

Fair enough. Maybe this is a recent trend in your area, but in Vancouver people have started referring to asking prices as "liar prices" or "marketing prices" -- they're often set low to attract interest with no intention of actually selling at that price.

In my case, I bought a house last summer and offered exactly the seller's asking price -- which they rejected, countering $5k higher (which I agreed to).

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

#264

Post by strken »

ghaff wrote: post #164
codegeek wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In other words, buying vs renting shouldn't only be based on numbers/math. I own a home for 8+ years and I have probably spent shit load of money in maintenance/prop.taxes/repairs that I probably wouldn't if I was just renting but there is no way in hell I am giving up my freedom of doing whatever I want to my home (yes yes there are limits with township/HOA etc). I don't need no landlord to tell me what I can and ca…

Yeah. By all means run the numbers. But at the end of the day most people probably shouldn't make a decision based on the numbers except maybe in some specific apartment vs. condo scenarios where they plan to stay in the area for a while. Otherwise, the type of place you want, how important mobility is to you, your freedom to make changes (and conversely your interest and willingness to do maintenance/repairs/manage…

I think it's implicitly assumed that anyone looking at the numbers is on the fence about buying vs renting to begin with, otherwise why would they care?

This can be true even if you've got strong opinions on lifestyle, in the case where you're pulled in multiple directions by different needs (e.g. you want to manage the risk of rent increasing at the same time as future house prices rise but you still value mobility, or you're frustrated with landlords but don't have a lot of project work planned, and so on).

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

#265

Post by throwaway803453 »

One of the reasons I planed to put most of my money in an expensive home and paying cash is to protect against liability. I had always thought your entire home is protected against lawsuits, but according to the link below it is only between $300k-$600k in CA. Meaning if someone 100% owns their $1M primary residence in CA, a lawsuit could force them out of their home. Please tell me I am misunderstanding this.

https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/2021-say-hello-to-californ...

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

#266

Post by sidlls »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #219
anonAndOn wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, pretty much anywhere California money is cashing out and fleeing too is way more insane than California itself.

Meanwhile for half the sale price of one 1200 sq. ft. 3/2 townhome on the Peninsula I could purchase 3 4-unit multifamilies on mortgage, each grossing about $50k/year in rents.

Will the appreciation of these properties be the same as that townhome? Almost certainly not. But money has time value, and the ancillary costs of ownership in CA are far greater.

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

#267

Post by gjs278 »

duped wrote: post #90
waylandsmithers wrote: post #43

One piece of millenial defeatism I hear a lot is "Ugh, I'll never be able to afford a 20% down payment, home ownership is impossible" I'm not sure where this myth came from, but as a millenial who went through the buying process in 2012 and again in 2016, I remember both times the lender just asked how much we wanted to put down. We could have gone as low as 3%, or maybe even lower. Yes, you have to pay PMI (private…

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…

if you can’t afford 5% you are so poor you should be living at home or in the streets. lmaoo go sell the computer you typed this on if you are really that poor off.

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

#268

Post by jandrewrogers »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #253
freeone3000 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A majority, or even a large minority, of sales cannot be above market price, by definition. If there are enough cash buyers that it's being difficult to buy at a given price, the market price is clearly somewhere above it.

You seem to be leveraging specific terminology in order to obscure the larger point - that buyers & renters are making substantially higher offers than homeowners are looking for. It is unclear how that helps move this discussion along.

In volatile markets, sellers often set the initial price well below their reserve price to attract a bidding war. This forces buyers to make their own determination of market value rather than anchoring to the list price. You most commonly see this in markets where there is a lot of price volatility or supply constraints such that it is difficult to determine a priori what a fair market price is, which describes a lot of markets these days.

Most buyers know this and bid their estimate of the fair market price, which may be well above list and hopefully the reserve price. This is a sensible strategy when the seller has no idea what a reasonable price actually is but there is a large number of buyers.

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

#269

Post by throwitaway1235 »

Assuming you live in a city, don't buy yet. We're in another historic bubble.

The pop is on its way. Many homeowners have taken advantage of Covid related forbearance on their mortgages. Expect a lot of foreclosures once they expire (begining now).

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

#270

Post by throwaway09223 »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #251
cperciva wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Buying isn't any better with sales going to all-cash buyers who are paying way above and beyond market. If that's the price houses are selling for, that is the market price.

> If that's the price houses are selling for, that is the market price. I'll rephrase it this way. Cash buyers are paying way above and beyond what the house was listed for. Likewise prospective renters are offering rents above what is advertised.

Yeah, but people are listing low to attract more eyeballs.

I sold a place in the bay area 5 years ago. I knowingly listed it about $200k under what we expect it to go for based on comps. Huge swarm of interest and many buyers offering a price at around what we expected.

It's just a sales strategy.

Post reply on HN