Shipping container Inflation! (700%)

[TGS]

I mostly agree. The only issue that comes up over longterm home ownership is maintenance costs. Things like a new roof, new windows, new HVAC, paint, yard work and equipment, etc. all increase the cost of home ownership. Even considering those costs, I find that home ownership is financially the smart move for me as it is less expensive than renting over a period of years.

right on *fist bump*

I'm in a townhouse-style condo, so a lot of that is taken care of through the monthly HOA fees or in extreme and infrequent situations, assessments shared by the community. The downside obviously being that resale isn't as profitable as a "real" townhouse or especially a single family home, but hey, even if I break even I'm happy compared to renting. I've also resigned myself to the fact that breaking even when it comes time to sell the place is the best I can hope for given I'm buying at what is likely the top of a bubble and end of a two-decade long booming expansion of the NCR, so if I end up making money on it at all then that's just icing on the cake.

I've had several people at work tell me they like to rent so they can invest more money which earns a higher return than real estate, and I don't think they understand that 1) You're still throwing away ~30% of your income that you'll see NO gain on at all, not to mention you won't even get it back at all, and 2) You're not investing more. As you pointed out, it's a game based what you can afford in a month....so if you're paying $2500 in rent, that doesn't mean you're investing more than if you were paying $2500 in a mortgage...quite literally you're investing more through buying since the property is an investment, and you still have the freedom to put the leftover discretionary income towards an ETF if you so choose just the same as if you were renting. The only difference is that similar to leasing a car, you have historically been able to get a "nicer" place by renting than buying given the same monthly limit, but I think that ends up being a matter of coming to terms with what is realistically within one's means rather than being a factor anyone should be making a decision on when deciding to rent vs buy.

[peterb]

I mostly agree. The only issue that comes up over longterm home ownership is maintenance costs. Things like a new roof, new windows, new HVAC, paint, yard work and equipment, etc. all increase the cost of home ownership. Even considering those costs, I find that home ownership is financially the smart move for me as it is less expensive than renting over a period of years.

There’s also the issue of time. As a renter, my weekends were my own. No mowing, raking, shoveling, painting……. As a homeowner, there’s always a chore list. For now the pluses of ownership outweigh the minuses but sometimes I do miss the free time that came with renting.

[4RNR]

I mostly agree. The only issue that comes up over longterm home ownership is maintenance costs. Things like a new roof, new windows, new HVAC, paint, yard work and equipment, etc. all increase the cost of home ownership. Even considering those costs, I find that home ownership is financially the smart move for me as it is less expensive than renting over a period of years.

I guess some of it may depend on your area and age of houses. I just replaced my roof last year. The previous was the original. $5400. New AC a few years ago $3000. Had a sewer pipe break back in 2016 $2200. Water heater in 2012 $300. That just under $11k and I've lived here since end of 06. Windows are less than 30 years old so they're fine.

There's been minor maintenance of other things but nothing expensive. New faucet x2, new pipe under the sink, new thermostat. All these are just minor things.

Just repainted the whole house last year because I was board. The original paint was from 07. I started in March and ended in Nov. Took my time and probably spent $500 overall. Each bucket was like $40 9 different rooms and some rooms needed 2 buckets + odds and ends like brushes, caulk, rollers.

Yard work is just a lawnmower. Paid $75ish back in 2007. It's the old fashioned type.....wheels spin the blades.

It's really not that big of a deal. If the house needs to be gutted down to the studs that's a different story

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[TGS]

I guess some of it may depend on your area and age of houses. I just replaced my roof last year. The previous was the original. $5400. New AC a few years ago $3000. Had a sewer pipe break back in 2016 $2200. Water heater in 2012 $300. That just under $11k and I've lived here since end of 06. Windows are less than 30 years old so they're fine.

There's been minor maintenance of other things but nothing expensive. New faucet x2, new pipe under the sink, new thermostat. All these are just minor things.

Just repainted the whole house last year because I was board. The original paint was from 07. I started in March and ended in Nov. Took my time and probably spent $500 overall. Each bucket was like $40 9 different rooms and some rooms needed 2 buckets + odds and ends like brushes, caulk, rollers.

Yard work is just a lawnmower. Paid $75ish back in 2007. It's the old fashioned type.....wheels spin the blades.

It's really not that big of a deal. If the house needs to be gutted down to the studs that's a different story

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The average homeowner these days also isn't their own handyman, so you represent an extreme on the low cost end.

The average homeowner would have paid substantially more than you since they would need a professional to do the work.

[4RNR]

The average homeowner these days also isn't their own handyman, so you represent an extreme on the low cost end.

The average homeowner would have paid substantially more than you since they would need a professional to do the work.

I didn't do the roof or the sewer pipe or any of the big dollar repairs but paints, caulk, spackle and sand, change a faucet....common man.... people can't be that helpless? But then again why am I surprised anymore?!?!

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[TGS]

I didn't do the roof or the sewer pipe or any of the big dollar repairs but paints, caulk, spackle and sand, change a faucet....common man.... people can't be that helpless? But then again why am I surprised anymore?!?!

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Me being a perfect example:

I've done all of that previously and I also learned some basic plumbing like soldering copper pipes, but that doesn't mean I want to do it, and I can afford to not do it.

I also know I can't do a given task as well as someone that performs said task everyday, so if I want it done right and done once, I'll pay someone to do it. I can spackle, sand, and paint a room, but it'll take me 4x as long as a handyman and not look as good in the end anyway. I'd personally rather pay him to do it and go drive my car or build a model airplane instead.

[farscott]

I didn't do the roof or the sewer pipe or any of the big dollar repairs but paints, caulk, spackle and sand, change a faucet....common man.... people can't be that helpless? But then again why am I surprised anymore?!?!

As I get older, I do less. For example, I used to do a fair amount of plumbing, including sweating copper joints and replacing the entire toilet. Now I limit myself to replacing valve seats and springs in the faucets, replacing flexible waterlines, and adding a bidet seat to a toilet. The arthritis and poor eyesight make those tasks hard enough to let me know I need to leave the bigger jobs to the pros. Heck, I needed my wife to help me get the valve seats located in the kitchen faucet a few months ago because I could not see if they were properly seated onto the springs.

[peterb]

I also know I can't do a given task as well as someone that performs said task everyday, so if I want it done right and done once, I'll pay someone to do it. I can spackle, sand, and paint a room, but it'll take me 4x as long as a handyman and not look as good in the end anyway. I'd personally rather pay him to do it and go drive my car or build a model airplane instead.

Our first house had manual garage doors. I was pricing openers, looking at installation instructions, and generally dreading the whole project. Then I got a quote on having it done that seemed remarkably reasonable.

We came home from work one day and had doors that opened at the push of a button. Amazing.

I bought myself a stress-free weekend. Absolutely worth it.

[Oldherkpilot]

I live in the DC metro area in northern Virginia.

$2500 is an easy pricepoint to find yourself at for an apartment in this area if you want a covered parking and enough room for your guns, ammo, and camping gear. My monthly payments for the place I just bought falls into that category and even with HOA and taxes and insurance, works out to a hair under $2500/month.

So, $2500x12=$30k. If I rented for a year, I'd have wasted $30k that could have been spent on gaining equity in a house. A better example would've been 2 years, as I'll be here for a very bare minimum of 2 years with my current assignment before I'm eligible to go elsewhere if I so desire...that's $60k I'd be in the hole on rent, so even if I decided to sell it two years from now (an extremely unlikely possibility) and sold it for $30k less than I paid, I'm still about even or a little ahead with having bought even when you hit me with the accrued T&I and closing costs....and that's an extremely unlikely worst case scenario akin to willfully slamming my dick in a door. A realistic scenario given my life plans, even if the bubble pops, is I sell it 13 years from now for the same price I bought it for; I come out way ahead vs renting. Now compare it against maturation of the mortgage. 30 years at $2500=$900,000 I have nothing to show for if renting; do the math on who ends up ahead, and it's several Porsche 911 GT3 RS-worth in my favor as a buyer. None of the "but" points of view I've heard from numerous people change that.

You should probably take a look at the amortization table that your lender ought to have provided you. Of your just under $2500/ month mortgage payment, about $825 goes to the principal and the rest is wasted just like your rent. "Accrued T & I" must be a DC thing, I'm not familiar with that term.

[TGS]

You should probably take a look at the amortization table that your lender ought to have provided you. Of your just under $2500/ month mortgage payment, about $825 goes to the principal and the rest is wasted just like your rent. "Accrued T & I" must be a DC thing, I'm not familiar with that term.

T&I: taxes and insurance. You mentioned it first: PITI. TI in PITI. TI=T&I, same as P&I means principal and interest.

I'm not sure what your point is about amortization.....that's $825 at the very first payment....the amount applied towards principal increases, so it's disingenuous to imply that only $825 will be applied to principal for the life of my mortgage, as if for the life of my mortgage I'd be wasting $1,675 each month just like rent. And, even if that WERE the case, which it isn't, that'd still be $825 per month that is equity I'd get back in the end.

And, yes, there's interest paid on a loan, but at the end of 30 years (if I were to even let the loan go that far) I'll still be several hundred thousand dollars ahead than if I were to rent. Not to mention, once I pay off the mortgage I've got thousands of dollars in extra discretionary income per month at that point...I'd own my place outright.....whereas if I rented for 30 years, I'd still only be renting for the rest of my life.

That also isn't accounting for the fact that rent will rise over time, so that $900k at the end of 30 years for renting is actually an unrealistically low number and would be much higher, whereas not only will my mortgage not negatively amortize but I have the option of paying down the principal early, thus reducing the amount of interest I pay over the life of the mortgage (and no, I have no prepayment penalty).

I'm kind of baffled why you're trying to convince me that buying doesn't make financial sense.