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The real cost of owning a home

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Re: The real cost of owning a home

#41

Post by whywhywhywhy »

kylehotchkiss wrote: post #23
cosmic_cheese wrote: post #12

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 you rent from an apartment complex (corporate owned), how big is the risk of being kicked out if you pay your rent?

They tend to just keep increasing it until you leave then just dial it back a little and get someone else in. Far worse than individual landlord that if you're a good easy tenant is gonna prefer you to an unknown, corporate don't care about that.

Re: The real cost of owning a home

#42

Post by jandrese »

bell-cot wrote: post #2

> You can save a lot of money in maintenance and repairs by doing your own work whenever possible. True. But even if you have the physical ability, skills, tools, and equipment handy - you can spend a lot of time on maintenance & repairs. Just ask anyone who's done yard work for a few years, or has repainted a house, or ...

That maintenance has to happen one way or another, hiring someone to do it can add quite a multiplier to the price. For example, I was recently looking at water heaters and called 4 different plumbers to get a quote. All of them came in around $5,000 for the job. The water heater they quoted costs $1,000 retail at Lowes. If you know what you are doing it isn't even difficult to install.

That said a layperson probably won't know the new code requirements in their jurisdiction and if you sell your house you'll have the inspector tut-tutting the work for one reason or another.

Re: The real cost of owning a home

#43

Post by Havoc »

The numbers miss a key aspect - risk management

Landlords do whatever the hell they like with zero consequences. Thats not a game I’d like to play with a 40 year horizon of unknowns.

With a mortgage the risk is interest rates. And on that I’m confident I can carry far more exposure than my peers. So if that blows up in my face then the entire country’s financial system is cooked anyway

Re: The real cost of owning a home

#44

Post by horsawlarway »

malfist wrote: post #11

This is nonsense. The person counts the 12 month escrow prepayment during closing as "cost to get a loan" It's not. It's the cost of 12 months of taxes and insurance on your property. Also notable is the "1 year insurance premium" either they're double counting the escrow, or this 1 year insurance premium is mortgage insurance where the bank makes you take out insurance to protect them. This can be prepaid, split pai…

I agree, this is a pretty terrible article that basically boils down to (to quote the article...)

> I bought this house new, and didn't live there very long

End of story.

Re: The real cost of owning a home

#45

Post by jandrese »

kube-system wrote: post #7
bell-cot wrote: post #2

> You can save a lot of money in maintenance and repairs by doing your own work whenever possible. True. But even if you have the physical ability, skills, tools, and equipment handy - you can spend a lot of time on maintenance & repairs. Just ask anyone who's done yard work for a few years, or has repainted a house, or ...

Yeah I was surprised not to see the opportunity cost angle in this article. For high income tech workers the opportunity cost can be huge

Depends if you would be getting paid during the time spent doing these projects. People with flexible vacation time might even be getting paid while doing the work. But otherwise weekends and evenings are great times for smaller home projects.

Re: The real cost of owning a home

#46

Post by whywhywhywhy »

RIMR wrote: post #20

>You've probably heard someone say something to the effect of "renting is just throwing your money away". Don't believe it. It's a glib statement that simply isn't true. If you take literally anything away from this article, this opening line is it. People who say this bought their house decades ago and have no clue what the present situation is.

You're still paying a mortgage if you rent it's just someone else's mortgage.

Re: The real cost of owning a home

#47

Post by fulafel »

vips7L wrote: post #34
cosmic_cheese wrote: post #12

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.

"February 2026 Rental Report: National Median Asking Rents Hit Four-Year Low" according to https://www.realtor.com/research/february-2026-rent/

Re: The real cost of owning a home

#48

Post by 0x59 »

In the US, median homeowner tenure is about 12 years. If the local price-to-rent ratio is high, (greater NYC metro for example) then you may have to stay 20 years to come out ahead financially. In a case like that, renting can be a very attractive strategy for building wealth.

Re: The real cost of owning a home

#49

Post by jeremy151 »

I am a DIY-er by nature with construction experience, I enjoy it, so when we wanted a bit more outdoor space, we moved from a suburban cul-de-sac to a slightly more rural property on some acreage, and chose an aged luxury home, feeling comfortable generally in my ability to be able to rehab it over time. After all, we're not in any sort of rush, and wanted the kids to experience putting work into the place where they live.

I misjudged the scale. Going from .5 acre to 10 I feel like the amount of time I spent on home and property maintenance before could all be allocated to just one bucket titled "nature." Mowing, whether it's lawn, meadows, trails, tree line, all on different schedules. Trees die, they fall, hang up. The volume of brush, invasive species, pulling it, burning it. When we bought it, I made a mental note: "we'll have to replace the driveway." That driveway is asphalt, and 1000 feet long. The quotes for that alone are in price territory of a luxury vehicle. Irrigation, 12 zones, repairing, winterizing. Septic is another ticking clock. When that goes, you're in for 5 digits. Don't have a suitable secondary location? Engineered system, multiply everything by like 3.

So remove that time from my schedule, that's what I have left for home improvement work.

We're deep into it and really enjoy aspects of it. But if I could talk to my pre-purchase self, I would advise that the scale difference is huge, and consider the amount of time that goes into baseline maintenance when deciding how much of a "fixer upper" to take on, especially when acreage is involved.

Re: The real cost of owning a home

#50

Post by francisofascii »

relium wrote: post #15

I think 1% per year is insufficient for repairs. Even a paint job will cost more than that these days. There's also a potential HOA fee, even in many neighborhoods with freestanding homes. But there are tax benefits of home ownership too. The interest deduction used to very significant, although less now since they raised the standard deduction. There's also a $250K/500K non-taxable capital gains benefit when you sel…

Painting is one of the home improvment tasks that most people can do without hiring out, especially since it is typically a discretionary.
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