A lot depends if you want to spend a lot of time maintaining your home. Or if you’d prefer to just call the landlord to get things fixed and enjoy your time on other things. The amount of time it takes to maintain a home is amazing and not for everybody.
Owning real estate and actually clearing your mortgage is my preference.
However, if job mobility is your thing, it’s hard to beat the rental options.
It depends on the person and situation.
“...Is it better to rent or buy?...”
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It depends.
I will always choose owning over renting. I want to wake up in the morning in my own house, not someone else’s. As for upkeep, that’s a small price to pay for knowing that you’re not going to be displaced by a new landlord. I pay way less for my house than even what a dingy two bedroom apartment goes for. And I have three bedrooms, two bathrooms and a spacious two car garage at the end of a dead-end street in a gated community. I don’t have to worry about through traffic or porch pirates.
It’s better to own. The powers-that-be just want us to believe renting is better because they don’t want us to own anything.
If you live in Florida or Texas, you might as well rent as your payments (particularly for insurance, but also property tax) will be nearly as much as rent, even if you have no mortgage.
“You’ll own nothing, and you’ll be happy”...
Bookmark.
At this point in our lives, owning is much less than renting. I guess if we sold our home, we could use the money to rent for a while, but our monthly income is not enough to pay the current rental rates, own a car and eat.
Buy. Always.
bump
IMO, buying a house early in your life is similar to investing in a 401k retirement plan. In theory, your house is paid for when you retire and you only pay rediculously out-of-confrol property taxes. But renters pay property taxes too and renters are subject to the vaugaries of the rent market which is like having an adjustable rate mortgage for your rent payment which, unlike ARMs, rent never goes down. No thanks.
Really good comments about high capital maintenance costs once the house reaches about the 20 year mark. At around that time it seems like almost everything reaches their useful service life at about the same time and needs to be replaced. But yeah, there is nothing like owning your own place.
Unfortunately, Trump was apparently bluffing when he ran on mass deportations, since only that would reasonably right the housing market—and raiser regular worker incomes.
The gubmint messed up the interest rates to inflate the GDP and support the illegal invasion.
Home prices went up too high
Home prices need to deflate
I would rent short term. Could be some nice buying opportunities this fall.
Boomers looking to cash in for their retirement could take it in the ear
The most important consideration is your lifestyle and work.
Your employer, or yourself, may move from one location to another as you climb a career ladder.
Renting is best in that scenario, and perhaps buy a vacation property
Is this about women or houses?
We rented for 6 months after selling a home, to give us time to find a home we wanted to move into - we spent as much on rent as we do now for our mortgage and HOA fees (which handle a lot of insurance costs we would incur with a home that wasn’t part of an HOA - along with any maintenance outside our interior walls. And we can sell for about $100K more than we paid if we decide to move again.
Different strokes for different folks...
The premise of the article is wrong. Since we live in America, I don’t care what the rental market is in Hong Kong.
I just checked a mortgage calculator and compared the current value of my house and current rates with what one of my kids is paying for his townhome rental.
It’s about even.
We refinanced when rates were at rock bottom. Our mortgage is less than any of our kids are paying to rent. And when I sell, I will have equity that they won’t.
Been my view that renting(I live in a small rural area & renting seems badly out of reach for many here,not that buying is any bargain either. The big problem with renting is that many property owners have had bad experiences with renters & seek to charge high enough rental to cover their bases. A person who would take care with a rental is paying extra for those who don’t.