4 ms·

That's basically the direction, yes. It's like healthcare in the US: Since people can't opt out of it, the system continuously optimizes for taking as much of t

That's basically the direction, yes. It's like healthcare in the US: Since people can't opt out of it, the system continuously optimizes for taking as much of their income as possible for the same good. I started shopping for a home a few years back, and I noticed something interesting: prices had adjusted so that the total cost of owning (including mortgage interest, taxes, maintenance costs, etc.) was almost exactly the same as the total cost of renting! It didn't matter what I did; the choice had been reduced to "Do I want to make a leveraged bet on the housing market, or not?" I did. That bet was basically a wash when I sold last year. After final calculations... I paid within $100 a month of market rent for the place. The only way you can get out of the trap is to acquire enough cash to simply buy outright (and then hope you never get the itch to move). And, of course, then that money is locked out of the investment market.

biztos 7y ago
> acquire enough cash to simply buy outright I did that a long time ago (not in the US) and owned the place until a few years ago, when I radically misjudged the market and ended up selling it at the bottom. Oops. Now I own a nicer and much more valuable place, with a mortgage; I may be able to keep it and pay it off, or I may have to sell if I ever want to move. For me personally, the lesson was that I want to own outright, or if I can't do that then rent, and I think I can do that for the rest of my life subject to some obvious limitations. Mostly because of the mobility trap presented by a mortgage.
thedaemon 7y ago
>It's like healthcare in the US: Since people can't opt out of it We do not have a national healthcare system as most of the world does. We are not forced to have healthcare. Yes there are provisions of Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that charge a tax penalty if you are not covered or exempt.
- banannaise 7y ago
  You're not forced to have healthcare COVERAGE. You can't opt out of actually having healthcare; if you do, you get sick and/or die.
ahaferburg 7y ago
I always thought the bet is not rent vs mortgage, but whether or not you can sit out the mortgage. Of course it's cheaper to rent if you plan to sell within twenty years.

biztos 7y ago

> acquire enough cash to simply buy outright I did that a long time ago (not in the US) and owned the place until a few years ago, when I radically misjudged the market and ended up selling it at the bottom. Oops. Now I own a nicer and much more valuable place, with a mortgage; I may be able to keep it and pay it off, or I may have to sell if I ever want to move. For me personally, the lesson was that I want to own outright, or if I can't do that then rent, and I think I can do that for the rest of my life subject to some obvious limitations. Mostly because of the mobility trap presented by a mortgage.

thedaemon 7y ago

>It's like healthcare in the US: Since people can't opt out of it We do not have a national healthcare system as most of the world does. We are not forced to have healthcare. Yes there are provisions of Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act that charge a tax penalty if you are not covered or exempt.

banannaise 7y ago
You're not forced to have healthcare COVERAGE. You can't opt out of actually having healthcare; if you do, you get sick and/or die.

ahaferburg 7y ago

I always thought the bet is not rent vs mortgage, but whether or not you can sit out the mortgage. Of course it's cheaper to rent if you plan to sell within twenty years.