A single person buying a home doesn't make financial sense

[hitman619]

Originally Posted by FalconheadWest

Being an accountant, why didn't you factor in the tax benefits of owning the home, and then calculate the profit of appreciation when you sell in 5-7 years? You didn't fully run the numbers. You ran the numbers to satisfy your own thinking, that you do NOT want to buy. You didn't prove that you shouldn't.

End Of Thread
Read this twice!

[TheShadow]

My first two homes I owned I made quite a bit of money. On the first, I paid 97K, (well actually paid nothing down on a VA loan and had a low interest rate). We paid the same payment for mortgage that we were paying for rent. Sold after 10 years for 166K. Bought my next home, as a newly divorced woman, for $132K, sold it 9 years later for 260K. That was about 2 years before the big price crash and mortgage crisis. Bought my 3rd home with my partner, rode out the crash and after 10 years sold it for what we paid for it. Probably could have gotten a little more, but was looking for a quick sale.

For others, I say if you are not comfortable doing a lot of maintenance and gardening, better to rent if you can't personally see the advantage of buying. I am on my 4th home that I have owned, and it will probably be my last. We're retired in a nice community we love, but someday will downsize. In 10 years or so, we will sell and probably rent for the rest of our lives. I think the flexibility to move around when and where we want without the hassle of selling will suit us then.

[JrzDefector]

I'm not going to get married or have kids. I bought a house in a rising market. If I get fired, I have no fallback, but I'm in a hot real estate market and it's reasonable to expect that values won't fall below what I paid for the house - which I got for under its appraised value and for a significant amount below the asking price before things went through the roof in the area. Moreover, rents have gone up significantly since I bought my house.

I work from home so being in control of my environment is vital. Having to move is a major hardship and could happen if I had a landlord who decided to sell or stop renting out his place. I also have two dogs and that makes finding a good rental a bit harder.

My mortgage is only a little more than what I was paying in rent, and I live in a nicer part of the Denver area than I did before (no crack house across the street - or hipsters. Still not sure which was worse.).

I bought a house slightly larger than I need. There are two bedrooms upstairs I can rent out if necessary (currently only one is taken right now) to cover at least 2/3 if not 3/4 of my mortgage, and if either of my parents need a place to live, I can provide that. Plus, given that I spend so much time in my house every day, the extra space is good for my sanity.

As a single person, I really had no choice but to buy a house.

If stuff goes pear-shaped in my life, I'll just sell it and find a crappy apartment in an outlying area and live close to the bone until something better comes along. But I really like my current situation.

[WildColonialGirl]

Originally Posted by ncole1

I wouldn't. I'm just saying the OP did not mention cutting the grass of an apartment.

Sorry, forgot you're American. In other countries, you means third person too, as in this case.

[kokonutty]

Originally Posted by WildColonialGirl

Sorry, forgot you're American. In other countries, you means third person too, as in this case.

You is always second person, whether singular or plural. At least where the English language is spoken by natives.

[ncole1]

Originally Posted by mathjak107

i already said i can give you examples of where buying is cheaper , but i can also give you examples where renting and investing elsewhere blew the doors off buying.

that is my point , you are arguing something that has many different outcomes . just figuring buying without figuring what your opportunity costs are with the money tied up in a house is flawed logic.,.

Griffon652 displays an extreme pro-owning bias and has managed to read the source I referenced, claim it says something that it does not, and then accuse me of not reading it!!! (Can I use the word "hypocrisy"?)

He says:

Originally Posted by griffon652

If your talking about pure finances owning a property over renting the same property will almost always yield you a higher networth in the long run.

Originally Posted by griffon652

If your own source is saying the same thing I'm saying mabye there some merit to it dont you think?

However, the source itself, in the third paragraph under "summary and conclusions" reads:

These results suggest that either homeownership or renting and
investing can be reasonable strategies for building household wealth.
In other words, the conventional wisdom that homeownership is usually
the better strategy is probably too strong.

So let's see here: He says owning is almost always better, then claims my source agrees with him. The source does not agree with him. It says "In other words, the conventional wisdom that homeownership is usually
the better strategy is probably too strong. "

which is clearly in contradiction to that.

Then to add insult to injury we have the statement

Originally Posted by griffon652

Wow....talk about being stuck on an idea without looking at research that you quoted to support your idea. So even after I gave you a specific page from your OWN link you didn't bother to read it. That tells me you obviously never read the whole 50 report you sent me since cant bother to read a single page.

I will gladly admit that the source's analysis does, in fact, display some amount of pro-renting bias. However, griffon652 is twisting and distorting it by interpreting a slight* bias towards renting as invalidating the entire analysis, which is far from charitable. Then he proceeds to accuse me of not reading it.

*I use the term "slight" here because the author of the paper views it as a small correction to be made, not an invalidation of the entire analysis, as is clear from the conclusion section of the paper.