Comments | poetpaladin: Renting Versus Buying

poetpaladin

Renting Versus Buying

May 21, 2009 17:09

Home ownership can easily be worse than renting.

It's not only that after adjusting for official inflation, home prices have historically only grown by about one percent per year! (If one adjusts for real inflation, then it is easily worse ( Read more... )

Comments 5

botia May 22 2009, 02:55:26 UTC

We didn't have much of a choice; landlords don't like snakes :(

poetpaladin May 22 2009, 05:22:40 UTC

Being contained in a terrarium, they're clean compared to dogs and cats. And quieter.

botia May 22 2009, 05:26:12 UTC

You would think that it logically would be like that, but OHNOES SNAKES tends to just cloud judgment :(

i_amsherlocked May 22 2009, 04:58:42 UTC

We've actually rented this place for 10 years...and paid over $214, 900 in rent. I wish we owned it!

poetpaladin May 22 2009, 05:13:13 UTC

In that case it may have been better to own it! Yes, two advantages are the mortgage interest deduction from taxable earnings and the fact that part of your "rent" goes towards equity (with rent, none of it goes towards equity).

On the other hand, I've lived here for 5 years, and I've paid $60,000. Since $250 per month would have gone to condo association dues, that's really $45,000 that could have gone towards a mortgage. Since property taxes are probably around $160 per month, the amount that could have gone towards a mortgage is lowered to $35,400. Since home prices have tumbled to below 2004 levels, the $35,400 I could have applied to a mortgage is virtually wiped out.