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> What do we mean by "good investment"? Housing is not a share of stock, it's a place you live in. So by good investment, I think the criteria is not that it b
by jjav 3y ago
> What do we mean by "good investment"?
Housing is not a share of stock, it's a place you live in. So by good investment, I think the criteria is not that it beats any kind of index fund, but simply that it beats renting. Because you have to live somewhere. Either rent or buy.
> to try to make housing into an investment
What does this mean? Who is trying this? What do they do?
As a homeowner who is reasonably (best I can) politically aware and always vote, I have never experienced these forces trying to make housing an investment. It's never been on the ballot here.
> have policies that tend to make it a poor investment
I believe that's impossible. Only way would be a dictatorship that says your house will be taken away from you and demolished every 30 years, or something like that. Would you want to live in such a world?
- sokoloff 3y ago> So by good investment, I think the criteria is not that it beats any kind of index fund, but simply that it beats renting. By that logic, a used (rather than new) car is a good investment as well. Since they're a good investment, I guess I should load up on used cars.
- jjav 3y agoA car is an expense. If you need one, it is indeed a much better financial choice to get a used one. But your needs probably don't scale, so you don't need ten cars, just one. You can't have an expense and make it up in volume to become profitable.
- sokoloff 3y agoOf course not, because finding a more efficient way to meet the needs which require an expenditure of money does not make that expenditure a good investment by the typical usage of that phrase. Same is true in used cars vs new cars and owner-occupied housing vs rented housing.