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The real cost of owning a home

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Re: The real cost of owning a home

#541

Post by aidenn0 »

bradleyjg wrote: post #501
asdff wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But the biggest thing is that I'm the only one in charge of maintenance. There's no one person I can call for every single problem. Keeping track of regular maintenance, performing that maintenance, and learning how to DIY things takes a lot of time. And even if I want to pay someone to do it for me, I still have to research contractors, coordinate estimates, and schedule the project. And I still need to learn enoug…

> Not easy I'm sure, Can confirm it’s not easy. If you want to describe a method of finding one, I’m all ears.

Ask your realtor for references.

Re: The real cost of owning a home

#542

Post by chrisweekly »

dividefuel wrote: post #315

Beyond financial costs, I was caught off guard at how much time home ownership took up. House maintenance and projects have taken up most of every single weekend of mine for the past few years. Part of it is simply that I bought a house with more space than the places I usually rented. More to clean, more to maintain, more things that can go wrong, etc. But the biggest thing is that I'm the only one in charge of main…

"Home ownership is definitely a lifestyle choice first and foremost more than a financial one."

Respectfully, that assertion isn't really supported by your anecdote.

Re: The real cost of owning a home

#543

Post by [deleted] »

wwweston wrote: post #365
Galanwe wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. That is not the right way to see it. If you have the cash to buy upfront, then yes, real estate is not that good an investment, unless you have a loaded portfolio already and want to diversify a bit, get some high inflation hedge, etc. The real value of buying a home is lever…

Love that the two most solid pro-homebuying points I've ever encountered (jedberg's about the psychological benefits, yours about leverage) immediately surface in an HN discussion. It's probably worth making a closer comparison though: * Buying a House on Loan: commit to paying off a $450k loan over 30 years at 5% interest, with an immediate $50k down payment and the home itself as collateral. So ~$2500/mo payments,…

[deleted]

Re: The real cost of owning a home

#544

Post by Sohcahtoa82 »

m463 wrote: post #467
dividefuel wrote: post #315

Beyond financial costs, I was caught off guard at how much time home ownership took up. House maintenance and projects have taken up most of every single weekend of mine for the past few years. Part of it is simply that I bought a house with more space than the places I usually rented. More to clean, more to maintain, more things that can go wrong, etc. But the biggest thing is that I'm the only one in charge of main…

I don't think home ownership is an "every single weekend" thing unless you bought a fixer-upper. Honestly, it sounds like you enjoy it. If you are doing it with that frequency I think you just are "into" your house.

> I don't think home ownership is an "every single weekend" thing unless you bought a fixer-upper.

It really isn't, and I don't know why so many homeowners act like it is.

I bought my house in 2015. It was built in 1983.

The only things I've had to do are a roof replacement, HVAC upgrade, and deal with a broken water main.

Sure, none of those were cheap, but that's 3 events in 11 years, and the first two I expect to not have to do again for at least 15 years, and the water main was a random one-off thing, and it didn't flood the house. It put a lot of water into my crawl space, but it didn't become a problem.

People who swear by renting will use it as evidence to show that owning is more expensive than renting, but I think they just ignore that those costs are factored into the rent, not to mention the fact that once I noticed my roof had a problem, I had people out the NEXT DAY to give quotes on replacing it. When I replaced the HVAC (Old A/C compressor was frequently tripping the breaker and was underpowered), I was able to choose to upgrade rather than dealing with a landlord who would install the cheapest thing they could find.

But ah...I've digressed.

The point was that home ownership isn't nearly the maintenance burden some owners seem to claim it is, and when there is a problem, being the one in charge of getting it solved, rather than having to harass a landlord into solving it, is nice.

Re: The real cost of owning a home

#545

Post by tomjakubowski »

steveBK123 wrote: post #405

Last summer I was reminded of the dichotomy of owning vs renting during the crazy heat wave in NY. Both my coworker and I had AC issues. For him, he called his landlord and that was it in terms of hassle. He then went after his landlord for a rent reduction due to the AC being an issue for a week. I instead had to buy a portable unit as a stopgap while I dealt with finding contractors to give me quotes on a new centr…

> Both my coworker and I had AC issues. For him, he called his landlord and that was it in terms of hassle. He then went after his landlord for a rent reduction due to the AC being an issue for a week.

This is the best case outcome. All too often, especially with mom and pop small landlords, the repairs are delayed or done incompetently, or there is no local ordinance offering recompense to the renter, or both.

Re: The real cost of owning a home

#546

Post by anjel »

asdff wrote: post #473
m463 wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think home ownership is an "every single weekend" thing unless you bought a fixer-upper. Honestly, it sounds like you enjoy it. If you are doing it with that frequency I think you just are "into" your house.

Depends where you live. In the midwest you might legitimately need to mow 3x a week and you might have a huge lot. If you say screw it and let it go to knee high weeds, city might show up and cut your grass and fine you for it.

Verdant lawn pride is a scam. An avoidable waste of time, water and maintenance dollars that seduces even desert dwellers

Re: The real cost of owning a home

#547

Post by nostrademons »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #544
m463 wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think home ownership is an "every single weekend" thing unless you bought a fixer-upper. Honestly, it sounds like you enjoy it. If you are doing it with that frequency I think you just are "into" your house.

> I don't think home ownership is an "every single weekend" thing unless you bought a fixer-upper. It really isn't, and I don't know why so many homeowners act like it is. I bought my house in 2015. It was built in 1983. The only things I've had to do are a roof replacement, HVAC upgrade, and deal with a broken water main. Sure, none of those were cheap, but that's 3 events in 11 years, and the first two I expect to…

The incentives change when you become a homeowner. You reap the benefit of any improvements you do to the property; you also know for sure when you're going to leave it, and you have the freedom to do whatever you want to do to it. Before, when you were renting, any improvements you did were throwaway time and money, benefitting the landlord and future tenants more than yourself.

Many homeowners respond to these incentives by doing more improvements.

This is also why many governments (both local and federal) subsidize homeownership. It incentivizes residents to improve their properties rather than let them rot, which has positive externalities for many of the surrounding properties.

Re: The real cost of owning a home

#549

Post by donflamenco »

abalashov wrote: post #412
dividefuel wrote: post #315

Beyond financial costs, I was caught off guard at how much time home ownership took up. House maintenance and projects have taken up most of every single weekend of mine for the past few years. Part of it is simply that I bought a house with more space than the places I usually rented. More to clean, more to maintain, more things that can go wrong, etc. But the biggest thing is that I'm the only one in charge of main…

Indeed. This is why I'm a preferential life-long renter, although I think the primary reason is that I can't stand living anywhere for more than 2-5 years. So much friction to move, unwinding this risky position very expensively, with loads of transaction fees stacked--I can't understand the appeal. Even owning a condo was enough for me to realise I don't want to own my own bare metal, and that I look at housing as a…

At least with me (married filing jointly), when Trump raised the standard deduction so high, the mortgage interest deduction doesn't come into play. It hasn't seemed to change my total tax liability, it just made my tax return easier to do. I haven't had to itemize for years now.

Re: The real cost of owning a home

#550

Post by lokar »

pc86 wrote: post #396
tootie wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always consult this calculator: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/upshot/buy-rent-cal... It forces you to make some assumptions on market returns and such, but it gives a pretty clear picture. The biggest variable is how long you expect to live in the same place (longer favors buy) and the next biggest is the ratio of average rent to average housing payment. The inflection point being that if you live in one…

> but that requires you predicting your life 30 years in the future. This is true, but the vast majority of people - especially in the US - don't move around the country or even state every few years. One of the biggest, perhaps the biggest, pro of renting is that you're not tied down to one place for very long. It's pretty rare that someone buys a house then is suddenly forced to move hours away.

I think people sell their (occupied) house after about 10 years on average, for whatever reason.
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