5 ms·
Life is not all about money! Buy a house because you want someplace to be your own, that you can customize, and really be part of a neighborhood, and not worry
by justinph 16y ago
Life is not all about money!
Buy a house because you want someplace to be your own, that you can customize, and really be part of a neighborhood, and not worry about asking a landlord for permission.
I bought a house because all the apartments I looked at for the price were dumps, and in a house at least I had incentive to fix the stuff that made it a dump.
- sstarr 16y agoExactly. I'm sure that the author's reasons for not buying a house are all perfectly valid to him, but there are many other people who don't just see their home as a pile of dollar bills with a bed inside.
- jaltucher 16y agoThats why I divided the post between "financial" and "personal". The personal stuff is my own reasons, the "financial" stuff is why I think financially buying a home is a big mistake.
- billswift 16y agoThe financial aspects depend a lot on where it is. In and near the large urban areas, no, owning a home does not make financial sense. But in small towns, well away from the large cities, it is a different matter. Rents vary from one area to another much less than home prices do. I moved in 2001 from the DC suburbs (College Park, MD) to Cumberland MD. The duplex I rented was about a third what it would have cost in College Park. Later, I bought both sides of the duplex, for less than a sixth of what it would have cost in College Park. From what the Places Rated Almanac said, that sort of variation is normal across most of the country. Note that in my case I even stayed within the same state, so I didn't benefit from the regulatory and tax changes that occur in some inter-state moves.