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No, you never 'own' your own home/property, you are merely renting it from the State. If you don't pay your 'rent' (property tax) they boot you out and 'sell' it to someone else who *will* pay it.
BS. You just don't understand how the system works. If you buy where everyone else wants to buy and you have money, your claim holds up. There are many situations where it doesn't. In most cases, grandma will not be kicked off her fully paid off property when grandpa dies and social security doesn't cover the taxes. Her grandkids with money might have to cough up when she dies to vacate the lien, but that is a different story.
Don't pay yer property taxes for 2-3 years, Then, you'll find out who REALLY owns yer home. (In my case, that person is Big Dan McAllister, the Treasurer for the County of San Diego.)
Consider the alternative to "owning" a house. And that would be "renting" a house. When you rent a house, you still pay all the expenses for maintenance, utilities, upkeep, repair, taxes of various kinds, etc, plus a profit to the landlord. All those things are included in your rent. Then, after your paying of all these expenses for umpteen years, the landlord boots you out and sells the house and pockets the profit for himself. You're left with a stack of rent receipts.
That right there is an extremely arguable statement in so many ways. First of all, it depends on where you live. I live in a rent controlled apartment so the landlord cannot boot me out for his own amusement unless I do something truly naughty like stop paying rent. I also have quite a bit of leverage with him for the same reason. Another thing you're forgetting about renting is that I have to deal with precisely 0 headaches of hiring contractors when it comes to fixing anything in the apartment. I just ping the landlord who shows up and promptly fixes everything. You also don't have to deal with the tax man or very much anyone else but the landlord himself.
Then there's the freedom. As long as I've fulfilled my 12 month lease (and I already have) I can move out whenever the hell I feel like it. Try that with a house when market is not as hot as it is today and you'll see the difference. You could be tied to your old house for months.
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So, by renting, you've benefitted from not having a lot of your money tied up at any one time, but over the long run, it is YOU who is still paying all the expenses, but someone else will get to reap the profits when it's time to sell.
You don't always make money on your own place. I've owned an apartment before and I lost money on it. Bought it in 2005 at the very peak and sold it in 2013 at a loss after being stuck for years in that dreadful place. It's all about proper timing.
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And another point that's important to many people, a renter is very limited in what changes he is allowed to make to a property. If you don't like the interior color, don't like the appliances, don't like the floor covering, don't like ANYTHING, there's little or nothing you can do about it. You MIGHT be able to get the landlord to make some changes for you, but that's generally rather difficult to do in most cases. Changes are usually made AFTER you move out to make it more appealing for the next renter.
As a friend of mine used to say, "When I own a home, if I want to dig a big hole in the front yard, all I need is a shovel." Try doing that as a renter and see where it gets you.
Clearly you've never lived in San Francisco. Of course minor small internal changes are ok but even if you own the home and want to do exterior changes you have to get permits from the city and lots of luck to you with that. People are waiting for years. And God help you if you want to build an addition to your home. They will shut you down very quickly. All it takes is for some neighbor to complain to the city and file an injunction for a small fee.
As a former home owner (owned for decades), currently sitting on the sidelines, I've been going back and forth about buying ever again. I still don't know what's right for me, but this author makes some really good points:
We're willing to put up with heavy restriction of property usage, the virtual elimination of economic use, the imposition of high and growing taxes, and the potential for legal attachment in exchange for tax incentives and the ability to sell the property at a higher price in the future.
Good deal perhaps, but it seems more like renting with the option to sell at a profit at a later date. Owning a home today is more like owning a stock: you hold title, but you have no impact on how the business is run, and your primary advantage is the ability to sell at a higher price. That means a house has morphed into something more like a tradable commodity than the traditional family homestead that could nurture a family for generations.
The dirty little secret in the housing sector is that over the past few decades price appreciation?has become?everything when it comes to homeownership.
That right there is an extremely arguable statement in so many ways. First of all, it depends on where you live. I live in a rent controlled apartment so the landlord cannot boot me out for his own amusement unless I do something truly naughty like stop paying rent. I also have quite a bit of leverage with him for the same reason. Another thing you're forgetting about renting is that I have to deal with precisely 0 headaches of hiring contractors when it comes to fixing anything in the apartment. I just ping the landlord who shows up and promptly fixes everything. You also don't have to deal with the tax man or very much anyone else but the landlord himself.
Then there's the freedom. As long as I've fulfilled my 12 month lease (and I already have) I can move out whenever the hell I feel like it. Try that with a house when market is not as hot as it is today and you'll see the difference. You could be tied to your old house for months.
You don't always make money on your own place. I've owned an apartment before and I lost money on it. Bought it in 2005 at the very peak and sold it in 2013 at a loss after being stuck for years in that dreadful place. It's all about proper timing.
Clearly you've never lived in San Francisco. Of course minor small internal changes are ok but even if you own the home and want to do exterior changes you have to get permits from the city and lots of luck to you with that. People are waiting for years. And God help you if you want to build an addition to your home. They will shut you down very quickly. All it takes is for some neighbor to complain to the city and file an injunction for a small fee.
Re the bolded: You're absolutely right, and, good Lord willing, I never will. In fact, I've never lived ANYWHERE where the government dictates what rent can be charged or what rent increases are allowed. And, in reference to your "lease" comment, everywhere I've lived, once the lease has expired, the tenant is on a month-to-month basis. This means that if the tenant wants to move, they simply have to give a 30 day notice. Likewise, if the landlord wants to boot out the tenant, they simply give the tenant a 30 day notice to vacate the property.
you mean LOL at the 2 "maybe don't own" peeps on this topic, who have been doing it for 1-3 years?
where's the guy from Va Beach who is 100% certain the market's getting ready to tank any minute now, so he won't have to compete for a house?
Read on. We have "contributions" from others.
LOLOL
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