5 ms·

Renting is underrated, especially in the US I feel where people are constantly encouraged to buy a house. https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/renting-is-not-

Renting is underrated, especially in the US I feel where people are constantly encouraged to buy a house. https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/renting-is-not-a-waste/ https://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/renting-is-not-a-waste...

Iulioh 3y ago
[flagged]
- recursive 3y ago
  Could you be more specific about which parts you disagreed with and why?
whateveracct 3y ago
Maybe in the market this very moment it's tougher to buy, but I bought in 2020 and my mortgage + other expenses pretty much match what I was paying in an expensive city (Seattle). I didn't buy in Seattle but it's an easy drive away. And my house is 3k sqft vs the 800 I had in the city. And that space is put to work: Proper office, guestroom, gym room, much larger and nicer kitchen (which in turn saves me even more money because I cook more), charcoal grill outside, room for more guitars and drums, proper dining room for hosting family gatherings, a porch I can sit and smoke on. The list goes on. Grocery store is walkable and the neighborhood is nice to walk in for exercise. City experiences are 20-40 min away depending on which city I wanna hang out in. I guess I have to have a car but I had one in the city anyways since I liked to drive to destinations around Seattle. It's an old Civic still kicking so it's pretty cheap all told. For the same money per month, locked in for years. If I renewed my lease in 2020 during the pandemic instead of owning, I'd be materially less well off.
- blackguardx 3y ago
  What city do you live in now? When I lived in Seattle, most of the suburbs with 3k sqft houses weren't that walkable.
  - whateveracct 3y ago
    I moved to a Tacoma suburb instead. Tacoma is a very cool city in its own right! It's my main city I do stuff in.
- daveguy 3y ago
  It must be nice to get a mortgage at ~3.1% or less. Do you realize that you would be paying over 50% more per month for that same mortgage today? Would you still consider that a super good deal that you can't imagine anyone not taking? Rate lock-in isn't that great with a high interest rate, because you are going to need to pay thousands to refinance. I get where you're coming from, but it's a different analysis today than it was 3 years ago.
  - whateveracct 3y ago
    Oh yeah right now - it's time to rent. If this was the economy in summer of 2020, I would've probably kept rolling with my apartment (which I did like a lot) while continuing to stash away liquid savings for when buying a house became a good deal again. But this article is about "Forever" Renters. I highly doubt buying a house will never be worth it if you follow the above path.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
bnchrch 3y ago
I agree with Ramit that it shouldn’t be characterized as throwing your money away. But. What it leaves out is by purchasing you’ve essentially fixed your cost of housing. Which is important when you consider. 1. Inflation 2. The ever increasing wealth divide allowing landlords to charge more for rent knowing their tenants can never qualify for the alternative of buying their own home instead. This is something I wish I understood earlier.
- dublinben 3y ago
  You're certainly setting a floor for your monthly housing costs, but there's all sorts of maintenance costs that crop up, unexpected repairs, and ever-increasing property taxes. I don't know any homeowners who would describe their housing costs as "fixed" and stress-free.
  - antisthenes 3y ago
    > You're certainly setting a floor for your monthly housing costs, but there's all sorts of maintenance costs that crop up, unexpected repairs, and ever-increasing property taxes. As a renter, these costs are essentially passed on to you anyway, so there's functionally no difference.
    - indecisive_user 3y ago
      The difference is in predictability. When you sign a 12 month lease, you know more or less how much you'll spend towards housing for the next year and it's easy to accurately predict a cost ceiling. When you own a home, you know the minimum you'll spend is the mortgage+taxes but in an unlucky year your AC goes out and you get a hole in the roof that insurance doesn't cover and suddenly you've spent 20k that you didn't plan on.
      - antisthenes 3y ago
        Only if you have the planning capabilities of a 5-year old. A house doesn't have that many things that can go wrong with it that would be unforseen expenses. AC, water pipe leak, appliance breakdown, roof replacement. None of these cost above $8k, and for bigger things there is home insurance (e.g. tree fell on a house). Many of these things can be mitigated with a cheap fix that will last you those 12 months until you have the funds to do it properly. Also, I see this sentiment a lot from people who have no problem dropping a $15-20k down payment on an car, but somehow spending that money for home maintenance is "scary" and "unpredictable".
kleene_op 3y ago
Okay, would you say the same thing about renting your car? Your computer? Your bed? Your toothbrush? Where do you draw the limit? Because you could justify being a forever renter about anything with your logic. Being a forever renter is being dependent on the whim of those who lend you "your" stuff. It's only natural that many people do not want that kind of lifestyle.
pramsey 3y ago
The decision is really surprisingly multi-dimensional and, no, most people don't even scratch the surface of it. I thought this calculator was brilliant a decade ago, and my opinions hasn't changed. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/buy-rent-calculator.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/buy-rent-cal...
- paweladamczuk 3y ago
  Do you have a non-paywalled alternative? The archived versions don't seem to work.
ponector 3y ago
Having possibility to get a 30-years fixed rate mortgage with low interest rate with option to refinance at any moment - renting could not be underrated vs owning. Buying a place to live is ridiculously affordable in US comparing to other developed nations.
bananapub 3y ago
er, ok? if the US has strict rules about not being evicted, and proper enforced rights to pets and making changes to rental properties, and some sort of mortgage affordability checking that takes into account rent you've paid for, that sounds excellent.
terminous 3y ago
Except that almost every landlord I've ever had has treated me like second-class citizen or a child, constantly invaded my privacy, and skimped on all the costs that you're supposed to be saving. No guests at any time. No candles. Inspections for "safety" every 1-2 weeks, often with no notice because of a contrived emergency. Wouldn't fix the freezer part of the refrigerator because the lease only said it has a refrigerator, not a fridge+freezer. Going off on long political and cultural rants against my generation and political party every time we interact. Cameras pointed at my front door 24/7, with detailed tracking of my overnight guests (for a lease that would only allow 2 weeks of overnight guests a year). If you don't own your home, you don't own your life.
- daveguy 3y ago
  You have had some weird ass f'd up landlords. I had 5 before buying and none were remotely that shitty. Sounds like a civil suit for invasion of privacy to me (at least in the US). And if I just got lucky, then stronger renters laws are needed.
  - selimthegrim 3y ago
    This sounds about average for New Orleans although the one tracking my overnight guests was in California
antisthenes 3y ago
A blog post supported by some twitter screenshots? If there are arguments in favor of renting, this definitely isn't it.

Iulioh 3y ago

[flagged]

recursive 3y ago
Could you be more specific about which parts you disagreed with and why?

whateveracct 3y ago

Maybe in the market this very moment it's tougher to buy, but I bought in 2020 and my mortgage + other expenses pretty much match what I was paying in an expensive city (Seattle). I didn't buy in Seattle but it's an easy drive away. And my house is 3k sqft vs the 800 I had in the city. And that space is put to work: Proper office, guestroom, gym room, much larger and nicer kitchen (which in turn saves me even more money because I cook more), charcoal grill outside, room for more guitars and drums, proper dining room for hosting family gatherings, a porch I can sit and smoke on. The list goes on. Grocery store is walkable and the neighborhood is nice to walk in for exercise. City experiences are 20-40 min away depending on which city I wanna hang out in. I guess I have to have a car but I had one in the city anyways since I liked to drive to destinations around Seattle. It's an old Civic still kicking so it's pretty cheap all told. For the same money per month, locked in for years. If I renewed my lease in 2020 during the pandemic instead of owning, I'd be materially less well off.

blackguardx 3y ago
What city do you live in now? When I lived in Seattle, most of the suburbs with 3k sqft houses weren't that walkable.
- whateveracct 3y ago
  I moved to a Tacoma suburb instead. Tacoma is a very cool city in its own right! It's my main city I do stuff in.
daveguy 3y ago
It must be nice to get a mortgage at ~3.1% or less. Do you realize that you would be paying over 50% more per month for that same mortgage today? Would you still consider that a super good deal that you can't imagine anyone not taking? Rate lock-in isn't that great with a high interest rate, because you are going to need to pay thousands to refinance. I get where you're coming from, but it's a different analysis today than it was 3 years ago.
- whateveracct 3y ago
  Oh yeah right now - it's time to rent. If this was the economy in summer of 2020, I would've probably kept rolling with my apartment (which I did like a lot) while continuing to stash away liquid savings for when buying a house became a good deal again. But this article is about "Forever" Renters. I highly doubt buying a house will never be worth it if you follow the above path.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

bnchrch 3y ago

I agree with Ramit that it shouldn’t be characterized as throwing your money away. But. What it leaves out is by purchasing you’ve essentially fixed your cost of housing. Which is important when you consider. 1. Inflation 2. The ever increasing wealth divide allowing landlords to charge more for rent knowing their tenants can never qualify for the alternative of buying their own home instead. This is something I wish I understood earlier.

dublinben 3y ago
You're certainly setting a floor for your monthly housing costs, but there's all sorts of maintenance costs that crop up, unexpected repairs, and ever-increasing property taxes. I don't know any homeowners who would describe their housing costs as "fixed" and stress-free.
- antisthenes 3y ago
  > You're certainly setting a floor for your monthly housing costs, but there's all sorts of maintenance costs that crop up, unexpected repairs, and ever-increasing property taxes. As a renter, these costs are essentially passed on to you anyway, so there's functionally no difference.
  - indecisive_user 3y ago
    The difference is in predictability. When you sign a 12 month lease, you know more or less how much you'll spend towards housing for the next year and it's easy to accurately predict a cost ceiling. When you own a home, you know the minimum you'll spend is the mortgage+taxes but in an unlucky year your AC goes out and you get a hole in the roof that insurance doesn't cover and suddenly you've spent 20k that you didn't plan on.
    - antisthenes 3y ago
      Only if you have the planning capabilities of a 5-year old. A house doesn't have that many things that can go wrong with it that would be unforseen expenses. AC, water pipe leak, appliance breakdown, roof replacement. None of these cost above $8k, and for bigger things there is home insurance (e.g. tree fell on a house). Many of these things can be mitigated with a cheap fix that will last you those 12 months until you have the funds to do it properly. Also, I see this sentiment a lot from people who have no problem dropping a $15-20k down payment on an car, but somehow spending that money for home maintenance is "scary" and "unpredictable".

kleene_op 3y ago

Okay, would you say the same thing about renting your car? Your computer? Your bed? Your toothbrush? Where do you draw the limit? Because you could justify being a forever renter about anything with your logic. Being a forever renter is being dependent on the whim of those who lend you "your" stuff. It's only natural that many people do not want that kind of lifestyle.

pramsey 3y ago

The decision is really surprisingly multi-dimensional and, no, most people don't even scratch the surface of it. I thought this calculator was brilliant a decade ago, and my opinions hasn't changed. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/buy-rent-calculator.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/buy-rent-cal...

paweladamczuk 3y ago
Do you have a non-paywalled alternative? The archived versions don't seem to work.

ponector 3y ago

Having possibility to get a 30-years fixed rate mortgage with low interest rate with option to refinance at any moment - renting could not be underrated vs owning. Buying a place to live is ridiculously affordable in US comparing to other developed nations.

bananapub 3y ago

er, ok? if the US has strict rules about not being evicted, and proper enforced rights to pets and making changes to rental properties, and some sort of mortgage affordability checking that takes into account rent you've paid for, that sounds excellent.

terminous 3y ago

Except that almost every landlord I've ever had has treated me like second-class citizen or a child, constantly invaded my privacy, and skimped on all the costs that you're supposed to be saving. No guests at any time. No candles. Inspections for "safety" every 1-2 weeks, often with no notice because of a contrived emergency. Wouldn't fix the freezer part of the refrigerator because the lease only said it has a refrigerator, not a fridge+freezer. Going off on long political and cultural rants against my generation and political party every time we interact. Cameras pointed at my front door 24/7, with detailed tracking of my overnight guests (for a lease that would only allow 2 weeks of overnight guests a year). If you don't own your home, you don't own your life.

daveguy 3y ago
You have had some weird ass f'd up landlords. I had 5 before buying and none were remotely that shitty. Sounds like a civil suit for invasion of privacy to me (at least in the US). And if I just got lucky, then stronger renters laws are needed.
- selimthegrim 3y ago
  This sounds about average for New Orleans although the one tracking my overnight guests was in California

antisthenes 3y ago

A blog post supported by some twitter screenshots? If there are arguments in favor of renting, this definitely isn't it.