Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
A recent study of residential units in America's most populous 100 metropolitan areas by Trulia, a real estate website, found buying to be less expensive than renting in 98 of the areas -- with Honolulu and San Francisco the exceptions.
Well it may be ridiculous to someone living in SF and Honolulu...
With record low interest rates, its always worth checking out the latest studies
It's a good study. Not sure why the other poster overreacted to such a degree.
Generally speaking, Americans are 'home-owner' obsessed. I'm amazed throughout city-data the amount of people who move, often sight-unseen, with a strong intention of immediately buying a house.
Upstate NY can't seem to build apartments fast enough to meet the demand. New homes sales are way down, and existing home sales are stagnant. Seems people are being very conservative when considering buying a home. Many don't know if they will continue to have a job and don't want to default on a mortgage. Plus banks are limiting who they hand mortgages out to. With the large amount of foreclosures around, you would think the banks would rent them out.
I think some of it has to do with the fact that people today do not tend to stay in the same job long. My grandparents and my parents all worked and retired from a job that they held most of their life. That doesn't happen much these days.
Yeah I agree with that. These days with no real pensions, poor raises/bonuses you are better off moving jobs then up the ranks. But I agree with Tiger as well, at least when I was in the States, most people tended to do a cycle of buy a house sell a house buy a house as they went through their careers. Dont know many families that are serial renters
Generally speaking, Americans are 'home-owner' obsessed. I'm amazed throughout city-data the amount of people who move, often sight-unseen, with a strong intention of immediately buying a house.
I suspect it has a lot to do with the combination of favorable tax laws for home ownership combined with the historically positive appreciation of real estate. Obviously the most recent period is different, but real estate has historically been an appreciating asset.
Obviously when you rent, your entire rent payment is an un-recoupable expense. And when you own, you can recoup a % of your interest & tax payments through itemized Income Tax deductions, you (in theory) recoup the portion of your payment that goes to principal every month through equity, and you build equity over time through appreciation. None of these financial benefits come through paying rent. So I think that has led to the obsession with ownership.
Today real estate has declined in value so many people are looking at it differently and are finding an appreciation for the mobility that is provided by renting -vs- buying and it could be argued that many renters lost less money over the past 4 years than many home owners.
Anyway, I like the perspective you bring Tiger Beer from you experiences living abroad. I have no idea how renting -vs- owning is seen in other countries and never really thought of it as an obsession here in the US ... but that's because I've never known it to be any different. But you have good point about a perception of obsession with owning -vs- renting.
Generally speaking, Americans are 'home-owner' obsessed. I'm amazed throughout city-data the amount of people who move, often sight-unseen, with a strong intention of immediately buying a house.
There's been a lot of marketing for decades around home ownership being part of the American Dream, and it became a major theme of the George W Bush administration to get lower income people moved into home ownership. That was behind the decisions to reduce regulation on the financial markets, to allow even more people to be able to get financing.
Of course, that didn't turn out quite as expected.
In my parent's time there was no stigma to being a renter, and they didn't buy their first house until I was a teenager and had three younger sibs. That's the part I wish we could get back to. I cringe when I hear friends apologize to others that they are renters.
There's been a lot of marketing for decades around home ownership being part of the American Dream, and it became a major theme of the George W Bush administration to get lower income people moved into home ownership. That was behind the decisions to reduce regulation on the financial markets, to allow even more people to be able to get financing.
Of course, that didn't turn out quite as expected.
In my parent's time there was no stigma to being a renter, and they didn't buy their first house until I was a teenager and had three younger sibs. That's the part I wish we could get back to. I cringe when I hear friends apologize to others that they are renters.
I've been renting for a decade and I'm pretty sure renting is just money down the drain... especially in Hawaii where property tax is virtually nothing for homeowners.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
