3 ms·

It's probably best to not think of buying property as an "investment" in the same sense that buying other monetary instruments is. You must pay to live somewher

by bane 10y ago

It's probably best to not think of buying property as an "investment" in the same sense that buying other monetary instruments is. You must pay to live somewhere, and by purchasing the property you live in, you do a more efficient job of capturing and minimizing that expense. In most places, the cost to rent is within spitting distance of the average monthly mortgage. All things being equal, buying parks some of your money until some point in the future when you can recover it, instead of just giving it to somebody else to park. In general, since the population of the Earth is growing, and we're not adding much more land to the planet (in fact, we may be doing the reverse), the inventory of available land shrinks and property is likely to increase in value at at least the rate of inflation, but often slightly higher over decades. Not great if you think of it as investment, but far better than showing it as a raw expense.

peckrob 10y ago
When I bought my first home, my Dad gave me a good piece of advise: "Don't look at it as an investment, look at it as a home." What he meant was, you have to live somewhere NOW. If you make some money at some undefined future point all the better, but right now you need a roof. But even if you lose money selling it later, unless things really go to hell, you'll probably lose less than you would have paid in rent over an equal period of time. And there's intangibles to owning a place that you can say is yours. I don't have to worry about drunken parties above my head, or finding parking, or my neighbor catching the building on fire trying to cook. If stuff breaks I can fix it, not have to wait for maintenance to get there "sometime" (my last apartment before I bought the house, the AC went out. In Alabama. In August. It was 90 degrees inside for 4 days before maintenance finally got around to fixing it).

by bane 10y ago

peckrob 10y ago

When I bought my first home, my Dad gave me a good piece of advise: "Don't look at it as an investment, look at it as a home." What he meant was, you have to live somewhere NOW. If you make some money at some undefined future point all the better, but right now you need a roof. But even if you lose money selling it later, unless things really go to hell, you'll probably lose less than you would have paid in rent over an equal period of time. And there's intangibles to owning a place that you can say is yours. I don't have to worry about drunken parties above my head, or finding parking, or my neighbor catching the building on fire trying to cook. If stuff breaks I can fix it, not have to wait for maintenance to get there "sometime" (my last apartment before I bought the house, the AC went out. In Alabama. In August. It was 90 degrees inside for 4 days before maintenance finally got around to fixing it).