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There is no answer to this question. It depends on too many different factors, including the temperament, skills, and attitude of the person involved.
The main thing is to keep your total housing costs (including property taxes & maintenance for owners) to as low a % of your income as possible. 25% of your gross should be the upper limit. Lower is better.
The lower your housing costs, which is typically your biggest expense, the more you can save and invest in other things...from savings accounts to stocks, bonds, and other real estate that isn't your primary residence.
Yes, I agree. "Owning" a mobile home and renting the lot it's on most definitely is the worst of both worlds.
I'm really interested in the whole tiny house movement, however its not as easy as drop 20k on a tiny home, you then are looking at eithe rspending the rest of your days in rv parks or paying someone 300 or 400 a month to park in your backyard. maybe still cheaper than a traditional apt or home but imho not worth the sacrafice of space and uncertainty of where your home will sit juts to save a couple hundo
It's cheaper to buy if you buy a house at the right price. When I was shopping houses I was absolutely determined not to exceed the payment for my 2br apartment which was $735 at the time (and rising).
I found a 2/1 for $95K. It needed about $35K worth of work but a total price of my mortgage and the repairs/remodeling per month is.... $746 and now I have a garage, land, and some very precious privacy where I don't hear neighbors through the effing wall.
The typical move-in ready starter 3/2 in my area is minimum $165K up to about $250K - in that sense owning would not have been cheaper. The problem is, most people buy houses in "moving up" scenarios. Certainly my realtor tried to steer me toward properties that were at the upper limit of what the bank would lend me; I had to tell him to stop that.
I looked at buying as more of a lateral move to escape apartment hell, not a prestige thing.
Like they say in real estate you make your money buying not selling so basically everything is dependent on getting in at a good price, getting a home in good condition, maybe buying the cheapest house on a nice block, etc.
if you're short on bux, the answer is not to do either. People often blow 2 week's paychecks on rent and utilities. If you're paying more than on week's takehome pay on those 2 items, you are messing up badly. Consider living in a van, very close to your job, for a year or so, and save/invest the money that you have saved by doing so.
actually what most folks do not figure is the fact most renters get to fly the empty seats tax wise.
most renters can not exceed the standard deduction . even we have a hard time and our investment income is quite high as well as we live in nyc with very high local taxes..
so typically renters especially if a couple get money back they never spent.
on the other hand many homeowners actually do spend that money from their piggy bank on interest and real estate taxes so even if they get some back by exceeding the standard deduction they do not get to fly the empty seats since they really did spend that money.
a renter couple with 5 or 6k in real expenditures gets over 12k as a deduction. they put money back in to piggy.
actually what most folks do not figure is the fact most renters get to fly the empty seats tax wise.
most renters can not exceed the standard deduction . even we have a hard time and our investment income is quite high as well as we live in nyc with very high local taxes..
so typically renters especially if a couple get money back they never spent.
on the other hand many homeowners actually do spend that money from their piggy bank on interest and real estate taxes so even if they get some back by exceeding the standard deduction they do not get to fly the empty seats since they really did spend that money.
a renter couple with 5 or 6k in real expenditures gets over 12k as a deduction. they put money back in to piggy.
Depends on many factors, housing cost, down payment, financing options, etc. To simply say that renting is cheaper is false.
What about the money that goes to the house? More importantly, what happens to the money that goes the to land the house sits on? That's called equity, where the renter never has equity in land nor housing.
there are so many paramterters to consider few can say which is better . the fact is though few consider most of them when trying to decide.
the biggest being ones own investing skills , pucker factor and discipline to invest on your own elsewhere if you rent.
rarely is that part of the equation along with a renter flying those empty seats tax wise.
just because i rented and made far more investing elsewhere does not mean you can , in which case the cost cutting ability of the house may be your best option.
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