Posted on 11/12/2015 11:23:52 PM PST by Up Yours Marxists
$100,000 House
$300.000 After paying off mortgage.
$60,000 Est. Accumulated property tax.
$30,000 Est. Accumulated property insurance
$100,000 Est. Accumulated Maintenance and repair.
$490.000 Est. Accumulated cost Over 30 years.
If your lucky maybe 20 years rent free $240,000
50 years of rent at $1000 mo. $600,000
This will probably be looked at as way off both ways.
The vast majority of people who have become wealthy in America have done so by owning real estate. Of course you can buy in too high in a bubble, but for everyone who loses out when a bubble bursts someone gets rich picking up the pieces. And ultimately everyone needs a place to live.
If the writer longs for a rented apartment, he’s certainly free to pursue it. Of course you lay down your resources and believe. We do that every day. Life presents risks on a regular basis. We either accept those risks and make strides or we stay in a risk-averse little bubble and cling to what’s perceived to be safe and guaranteed.
The difference is the paid-off asset of a fully owned home that has appreciated in value over time. The renter comes away with absolutely nothing but a pat on the back from his landlord for paying his mortgage, boat and new car.
Good reply. Pretty much to the point.
“The difference is the paid-off asset of a fully owned home that has appreciated in value over time.”
What I’ve actually seen here in Houston is a $30K, 30 year old home
go for $230K. That would be almost %800.
Try to add a room to your home without "permission" - you'll see who owns it.
Governments have worked in collusion with the building industry for decades. Without the taxes generated with home ownership where would the govt. be?
I had a thought; look at what has happened in Europe, specifically Germany. It has been reported that there are those who live in government owned houses, flats, etc. and rent them from the local government summarily to get out and move along because the ‘Muslim immigrants’ needed those place to live in.
Doing that if the occupant ‘owned’ the house would have been a lot more difficult that it was since the occupant only rented the place or more probably lived there ‘welfare system’.
The problem today is that most "homeowners" don't really own a home. They own a mortgage.
That’s true if your situation is stable enough that you can decide to live in the same place for 25+ years. As time goes on, this becomes more and more rare in the U.S.
The renter keeps their independence/mobility (important as more and more Americans are following the jobs around like the Joads in “The Grapes of Wrath”) but loses important income tax benefits; the homeowner deals with property taxes and the gamble that an area won’t go downhill. Fewer Americans see the need for homes today because they don’t breed anyway, but that in fact makes those tax benefits even more important (since there are no deductions for children).
We bought a home when we started having children, and wouldn’t have it any other way. Once they’re grown and on their own, I’d re-visit the issue. Tenants just pay for someone else’s home, a worthwhile venture for some - they aren’t tied to an area and can flee Section 8 folks.
Even if you own a home outright, it's important to remember that it is one of the least liquid assets you can own.
It's kind of odd that way, but it's true.
Owning your home is a great good.
Living in a home owned by the bank via mortgage is a great evil.
Don’t confuse the two.
* You get a Mortgage Deduction, wooppee.
* But their is no Basis + Adjusted Basis + Closing Cost / Fee's instead you get 250k or 500k tax free if you make money.
* If you don't make money you can't Deduct the Loss.
* How is this not La-La-Land and you never can factor in maintenance and or upgrades unless you really track it to see if you made money or not.
Can you imagine Stocks, Bonds, or any other Investment living by these rules?
Get rid of the Mortgage Deduction, Flat Tax City baby and let people see what these money pits are really doing to them. I think many would forgo the fancy tiles and marble counters....
Who would want to live in a home that you can’t customize and remake to your own desires? For young, transient people I can understand renting (that’s what I did), but as a middle-aged man it would be nuts. I live in the country on 13 acres with a growing family, and would find living under even the most reasonable landlord’s rules a source of frustration. My condolences to those living in cookie-cutter boxes in a city, but you are missing out.
Still, it's been great owning my own home. I lived in an apartment for 13 years before buying and it was a hassle. Cheap landlord and disagreeable neighbors. In my own home, I can fix it up the way I want. I can turn up the tv without the neighbors freaking out. I can plant flowers and tomatoes. I can create an environment that makes me happy instead of having to conform to a landlord's specifications.
Unfortunately, illness and age are conspiring to make it difficult to keep up the place, so I will probably have to go back to apartment living again. Still, home ownership has been a great experience and if it's financially possible, I wholeheartedly recommend it.
With the boom and bust as well as so much economic dislocation in much of the country, it’s becoming an iffy proposition unless you buy at the bottom of a crash (not easy for most) or pick up a distressed property. Paying market price is a recipe for being upside down for too long.
You don’t just get a mortgage interest deduction, you get a property tax deduction as well (an important consideration in high-tax states like NJ). The government puts these incentives in place because they can’t deal with a truly mobile population (as evidenced by our cities, where the mass evacuation of taxpayers has left them little more than welfare reservations). The government (at all levels) wants to deal with a stable population, rather than opening & closing school districts and such as people migrate.
Owning a home is hard (financially and physically if you want to upkeep the property), and I wouldn’t have considered it until we started having children, but I couldn’t imagine raising them in an environment where I’d constantly be shushing them and having them living in cramped space. I also wouldn’t want to deal with other tenants’ pest problems; one “Infested” episode featured a Canadian woman living in an apartment building where an Indian tenant refused to allow the owner-paid exterminator to clean out his unit - so everyone else’s efforts were in vain. While not a common issue for everyone, this is certainly a growing problem here in NJ: Once one unit is rented to Indians (who believe in reincarnation), the whole building quickly becomes 100% Indian for exactly that reason.
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