5 ms·

> Normal people are renting apartments or portions of homes. About 2/3 of households in the US own the home they live in. Renting is the minority, not the majo

> Normal people are renting apartments or portions of homes. About 2/3 of households in the US own the home they live in. Renting is the minority, not the majority.

Retric 1y ago
Owning an apartment isn’t materially different than renting an apartment here. It’s sometimes better as many apartments have free or rentable spaces available for parties as a selling point, but rarely can you use that space late in the evening. Owning a home in an HOA area can drastically cut down on what kinds of parties you can host.
- Gigachad 1y ago
  To some extent but there are differences. You have housing stability, a fixed price going forward, the ability to renovate most of the internals, and the ability to affix things to the walls without worrying about marks when you have to move out.
  - Retric 1y ago
    I don’t disagree, my comments was about the logistics of throwing a party.
  - BirAdam 1y ago
    Well… mostly fixed price. Property taxes go up every single year, and are now the largest single payment I make every year.
    - TheAmazingRace 1y ago
      This is a detail conveniently left out by home owners justifying their purchase, especially if they overpaid and have a higher interest rate on their mortgage on top of it. With a mortgage, the amount you pay is the expected floor you'll encounter, whereas with rent, the amount you pay is the maximum you'll deal with, at least for the duration of the lease agreement. Renting honestly can be a better deal, especially if you have the discipline to stick excess money in the market consistently. In fact, your returns are likely better than just using a house as a forced savings account. In my neck of the woods, we have seen rental inversion too.
      - lesuorac 1y ago
        > This is a detail conveniently left out by home owners justifying their purchase I mean you can phrase it this way. Or you can phrase it as homeowners are willing to play a premium for stability / forced savings. (And to be less generous, homeowners may be getting cheaper access to capital than otherwise available to a renter; espsecially as the homeowner locks in ~2% interest rate while a margin loan has increase to 10+% [1]). However, for markets with low construction and strong demand I'm pretty sure home ownership comes out ahead. Like look at housing prices in the bay area historically vs current rents. That said, you need a handicap'd rental market for renting to be worse so the general situation is it's better _iff_ you invest the difference. [1]: https://www.schwab.com/margin/margin-rates-and-requirements https://www.schwab.com/margin/margin-rates-and-requirements
        TheAmazingRace 1y ago
        I will say, one huge advantage for home ownership over renting is when you are in a dual income household and have kids. Your lifestyle isn't going to be as compatible with moving around constantly trying to find a good deal (like I'm able to as a single person). And if you do plan to stay put for 10 years or so, you will most definitely come out ahead. But you really need to be in the right mindset and phase of your life for this to truly make sense. I often times see others not really ready to settle down rush and buy a home, only to end up regretting the decision a few years down the line, sometimes even sooner. I will also note, that the notion of having access to a cheap line of credit, like a HELOC, can be a fantastic tool when used correctly. But... I'm also seeing folks abuse this to keep up with the Joneses. And when times get tough, they won't be able to pivot and might end up defaulting and then losing their home in the process. The overall state of the economy will still need another major shakedown before those elements of society get their wake-up call. It sorta started happening with Liberation Day, but we bounced back rather quickly... so who knows when that would happen.
  - orangecat 1y ago
    a fixed price going forward Property taxes, HOA fees, maintenance, appliances randomly breaking and resulting in bills of thousands of dollars... the ability to affix things to the walls without worrying about marks when you have to move out If you care about the sale price you will worry about that, among many other things.
    - bluefirebrand 1y ago
      > If you care about the sale price you will worry about that, Marks on the walls from hanging pictures is not going to meaningfully change the sale price of a house, please be serious However it could absolutely lose you your damage deposit when renting
roadside_picnic 1y ago
Thank you for mentioning this! There's this weird, persistent meme that large corporations are buying up all the housing and nobody owns homes anymore, which is fundamentally not supported by the data. There are shifting trends in generational home ownership rates, but these are still just initial trends we're seeing. If you look at the data [0] owner occupied has gone down from the 2000s housing bubble, but in the grand scheme of things is not even particularly low. People also have this mistaken belief that investors like Black Rock are buying up huge swaths of property, when in reality most "investment" properties are bought by families and individuals, consider anyone who know who owns an AirBNB rental or other rental property, they would be considered "investors". Most Americans still live in a house, and own that house (or at least, some member of their household owns it). 0. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N
- floatingtorch 1y ago
  Yes, it’s surprised me how this meme was everywhere in the comments while the data does not support it. I’d bet it’s splashy headlines in news outlets. Important to correct it so that policy is focused on what’s most effective.
  - iwontberude 1y ago
    Blackrock sounds scary
    - BobaFloutist 1y ago
      People absolutely also conflate it with Blackstone and even Blackwater.
      - lesuorac 1y ago
        tbh conflating blackrock and blackstone is pretty fair. Their named similarly because it's the same people with just a slightly different business.
- 1y ago
hnpolicestate 1y ago
This is misleading. The trend is going in the opposite direction and the figure is closer to 53% https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/1ew7tp6/no_67_of_americans_dont_own_their_home/ https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/1ew7tp6/no_67_o...
danaris 1y ago
But what's the demographic breakdown of this? How many of that 2/3 is households that have owned the home for 20+ years—ie, since before the subprime crash? How many of that 2/3 is households of people 65+? And how many is people under 30? Partying is still largely a young people's game, and even if your "household" owns the home you live in, if that's your parents or grandparents, you're much less likely to be hosting parties there.
bethekidyouwant 1y ago
Yeah, but the 2/3 of people are old boomers that don’t party.
asdff 1y ago
That is severely overrepresented by old farts who don't party. Among people who party most probably rent.
JohnTHaller 1y ago
For adults under 35, less than 38% own their own home and the rate is falling. Also, it varies quite a lot by state. Over 3/4 of adults own their own home in West Virginia, but in New York it's a bit over 1/2.
- sieabahlpark 1y ago
  [dead]
- BirAdam 1y ago
  Population also varies wildly by state, and New York makes up a far larger percentage of the USA than does West Virginia.
torginus 1y ago
yeah, as an East European, it's crazy that our real estate prices are basically the same as the non-super expensive US cities, and we make like one-fifth the salary. In fact I just checked and the ratio of avg salary to real estate prices is about the same as in New York.

> Normal people are renting apartments or portions of homes. About 2/3 of households in the US own the home they live in. Renting is the minority, not the majority.

Retric 1y ago

Owning an apartment isn’t materially different than renting an apartment here. It’s sometimes better as many apartments have free or rentable spaces available for parties as a selling point, but rarely can you use that space late in the evening. Owning a home in an HOA area can drastically cut down on what kinds of parties you can host.

Gigachad 1y ago
To some extent but there are differences. You have housing stability, a fixed price going forward, the ability to renovate most of the internals, and the ability to affix things to the walls without worrying about marks when you have to move out.
- Retric 1y ago
  I don’t disagree, my comments was about the logistics of throwing a party.
- BirAdam 1y ago
  Well… mostly fixed price. Property taxes go up every single year, and are now the largest single payment I make every year.
  - TheAmazingRace 1y ago
    This is a detail conveniently left out by home owners justifying their purchase, especially if they overpaid and have a higher interest rate on their mortgage on top of it. With a mortgage, the amount you pay is the expected floor you'll encounter, whereas with rent, the amount you pay is the maximum you'll deal with, at least for the duration of the lease agreement. Renting honestly can be a better deal, especially if you have the discipline to stick excess money in the market consistently. In fact, your returns are likely better than just using a house as a forced savings account. In my neck of the woods, we have seen rental inversion too.
    - lesuorac 1y ago
      > This is a detail conveniently left out by home owners justifying their purchase I mean you can phrase it this way. Or you can phrase it as homeowners are willing to play a premium for stability / forced savings. (And to be less generous, homeowners may be getting cheaper access to capital than otherwise available to a renter; espsecially as the homeowner locks in ~2% interest rate while a margin loan has increase to 10+% [1]). However, for markets with low construction and strong demand I'm pretty sure home ownership comes out ahead. Like look at housing prices in the bay area historically vs current rents. That said, you need a handicap'd rental market for renting to be worse so the general situation is it's better _iff_ you invest the difference. [1]: https://www.schwab.com/margin/margin-rates-and-requirements https://www.schwab.com/margin/margin-rates-and-requirements
      - TheAmazingRace 1y ago
        I will say, one huge advantage for home ownership over renting is when you are in a dual income household and have kids. Your lifestyle isn't going to be as compatible with moving around constantly trying to find a good deal (like I'm able to as a single person). And if you do plan to stay put for 10 years or so, you will most definitely come out ahead. But you really need to be in the right mindset and phase of your life for this to truly make sense. I often times see others not really ready to settle down rush and buy a home, only to end up regretting the decision a few years down the line, sometimes even sooner. I will also note, that the notion of having access to a cheap line of credit, like a HELOC, can be a fantastic tool when used correctly. But... I'm also seeing folks abuse this to keep up with the Joneses. And when times get tough, they won't be able to pivot and might end up defaulting and then losing their home in the process. The overall state of the economy will still need another major shakedown before those elements of society get their wake-up call. It sorta started happening with Liberation Day, but we bounced back rather quickly... so who knows when that would happen.
- orangecat 1y ago
  a fixed price going forward Property taxes, HOA fees, maintenance, appliances randomly breaking and resulting in bills of thousands of dollars... the ability to affix things to the walls without worrying about marks when you have to move out If you care about the sale price you will worry about that, among many other things.
  - bluefirebrand 1y ago
    > If you care about the sale price you will worry about that, Marks on the walls from hanging pictures is not going to meaningfully change the sale price of a house, please be serious However it could absolutely lose you your damage deposit when renting

roadside_picnic 1y ago

Thank you for mentioning this! There's this weird, persistent meme that large corporations are buying up all the housing and nobody owns homes anymore, which is fundamentally not supported by the data. There are shifting trends in generational home ownership rates, but these are still just initial trends we're seeing. If you look at the data [0] owner occupied has gone down from the 2000s housing bubble, but in the grand scheme of things is not even particularly low. People also have this mistaken belief that investors like Black Rock are buying up huge swaths of property, when in reality most "investment" properties are bought by families and individuals, consider anyone who know who owns an AirBNB rental or other rental property, they would be considered "investors". Most Americans still live in a house, and own that house (or at least, some member of their household owns it). 0. https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RHORUSQ156N

floatingtorch 1y ago
Yes, it’s surprised me how this meme was everywhere in the comments while the data does not support it. I’d bet it’s splashy headlines in news outlets. Important to correct it so that policy is focused on what’s most effective.
- iwontberude 1y ago
  Blackrock sounds scary
  - BobaFloutist 1y ago
    People absolutely also conflate it with Blackstone and even Blackwater.
    - lesuorac 1y ago
      tbh conflating blackrock and blackstone is pretty fair. Their named similarly because it's the same people with just a slightly different business.
1y ago

hnpolicestate 1y ago

This is misleading. The trend is going in the opposite direction and the figure is closer to 53% https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/1ew7tp6/no_67_of_americans_dont_own_their_home/ https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/1ew7tp6/no_67_o...

danaris 1y ago

But what's the demographic breakdown of this? How many of that 2/3 is households that have owned the home for 20+ years—ie, since before the subprime crash? How many of that 2/3 is households of people 65+? And how many is people under 30? Partying is still largely a young people's game, and even if your "household" owns the home you live in, if that's your parents or grandparents, you're much less likely to be hosting parties there.

bethekidyouwant 1y ago

Yeah, but the 2/3 of people are old boomers that don’t party.

asdff 1y ago

That is severely overrepresented by old farts who don't party. Among people who party most probably rent.

JohnTHaller 1y ago

For adults under 35, less than 38% own their own home and the rate is falling. Also, it varies quite a lot by state. Over 3/4 of adults own their own home in West Virginia, but in New York it's a bit over 1/2.

sieabahlpark 1y ago
[dead]
BirAdam 1y ago
Population also varies wildly by state, and New York makes up a far larger percentage of the USA than does West Virginia.

torginus 1y ago

yeah, as an East European, it's crazy that our real estate prices are basically the same as the non-super expensive US cities, and we make like one-fifth the salary. In fact I just checked and the ratio of avg salary to real estate prices is about the same as in New York.