T/S: Renting vs. Owning

Right now, though, the pattern is of course in favor of renting in many circumstances, because yeah, the price of real estate right now is fucking absurd - I can't imagine paying for all the maintenance fees on this place or being a homeowner at this point.

Same houses, $300,000 less.

what is not being addressed here is the significant tax relief that a mortgage loan represents. when up to 38% of your paycheck is being paid to taxes, it helps to get some of that money back when you file your annual tax return.

Condo owner = when the drainpipes fail or other household catastrophes occur in the common areas there should be a janitor or board member or someone you can call and complain to. But yes, if my refrigerator were to die I'd be the one responsible for replacing it.

gygax is OTM re. the U.S. provision for deducting mortgage interest. Also, if you own your housing payment will be relatively stable over the years (unless your real estate tax assessment made a big jump, as happened to me this year). Renters, OTOH, are usually subject to rent increases, even in cities where there is rent control. A friend of mine got evicted last year because Adams Morgan rents went so high and she couldn't keep up with the payments.

There's a lot to be said for equity and homebuying and more. I have some vague plans still ticking over for the future, but for now, everything in my rental has worked like a charm, no complaints about the staff and service and it could be worse.

The flip side of that real estate tax increase I mentioned.
:^/

Obviously house prices don't always rocket that way.

I got my rent reduced 20 dollars a month and a check from my landlord cause the property taxes were cut. Apparently in Ontario 20% of your rent is for property taxes and any drop in those taxes means a drop in your rent.

I would love to buy a place but I don't see that happening until we pay off most of our absurd credit card debt and the market for buying stabilizes out here, and we get some kind of savings together. Having just bought a car and found that an exhausting, confidence crushing experience, I don't think I'm capable of buying a big piece of real estate right now.

Not to send people off to other forums, but thefool.com has a really good discussion about the merits of renting vs. buying and someone explains the tax savings of mortgage payments.

But it is worth it, if you really want to get your finances sorted out.

The low interest rates and continued growth of the DC area economy are making housing prices in this area absurd and in my view unsustainable. My parents know of a family that lived up here in the 80s and purchased a house - 10 years later they sold it for less than the price they originally paid.

My bank's calculations have made it very clear that I should continue to rent - to try and afford the kind of property I want, I'd be house broke, and I have train tickets to pay for.

There is something about the whole pursuit of land/place/investment/property that ultimately is fundamentally unappealing to me, I realize. I think it is the same reason why I'm extremely nonplussed with the idea of working for profit in a corporate setting or why I dislike some sort of generic Irvine-like model of what life and living should be like, it's almost like there's some sort of consensual hallucination at play -- though then again that's probably mostly the pressures of Orange County at work.

Also, there's some lingering sense of a crash in my brain for this county -- not a crash in real-estate prices as such, more some sort of full-on economic/environmental fuckup that can't or won't be controlled, where what happens to the value of what's around here is compounded by other factors. I don't mind the idea of living here and enjoying life. I mind the idea of putting down some sort of roots and playing the local developer/real estate game, it feels fundamentally wrong somehow.

Also, prices for both rent and purchase in the major international cities have gone up so vertiginously over the past 20 years that I was getting scared that in my fundamentally insecure profession I'd just get priced right out altogether, so I felt I had to step on the property ladder at some point.

*thinks for a bit* See, I'm trying to gauge this with my own feelings and...*shrug*...I guess it just doesn't bother me. It's strange, but I almost see it as more a status symbol than a necessity -- which is of course odd, shelter being far more than a status symbol. I dunno.

Having said that, I bought a flat because I wanted somewhere I could call home, not because I wanted an investment. One of my pet hates is people talking about where they live as their property, which implies monetary value, rather than their home, which implies cozy warm things like cats stretched out on a rug in front of the fire and dragging your duvet through to the living room and falling asleep in front of the footie on a Sunday afternoon. And that's worth much more than money, obv.

See, phrased in those terms, I very much have a home, a place where I am perfectly comfortable and cozy, almost ridiculously so. I actually wondered if switching from living in a house to living in a solo apartment would be a bit of a drag; on the contrary it was so perfectly nice to have that little compact space and all I need in it. The ownership part almost seems like an unnecessary extra factor.

*Madchen thinks hard and decides not to paint her flat black or make dodgy stains on the carpet, but does hang a dartboard in the kitchen*

(x-post)

I knew I had completed some contemporary rite of passage the first time I went to lunch with coworkers, and talked about real estate.

It's pretty much what happened with me renting at the old house with friends after five plus years of being there, when it was put on the market and then sold -- but I was actually the only one there the entire time and more than one person was telling me that I really should be looking into a place just for myself, because for me the concern wasn't the ownership of the place as much as it was just getting in new people time after time and hoping that everyone would get along. Which I had amazing luck with most of the time but when the house went on the market, at the time the other two housemates were at each other's throats. All I cared about was, ultimately, solitude and formal year-long lease arrangements to be renewed if I felt I could afford it. I got both and believe me, it was SO needed.

Also would your landlord mind if you threw darts at the wall/painted your living room black/got dodgy stains on the furniture? I can do all these things if
I want.

I have no impulse to do the first two and the furniture is my own, so...

less worry about maintenance issues (if your landlord is good), and I like the feeling that I could
pick up and move to another city if something came up without too much hassle (even if I probably won't).

Both very good points. It's a corporate apartment set up, I should note, and while the rent is high the benefits have been pretty strong throughout -- I've actually had next to no maintenance issues all the time I've been here aside from one time when the sink was clogged, I've never had to run the heater in winter and barely needed the a/c in summer, the pool and hot tub are enjoyable indulgences nearby, the location is great, etc. etc.

It's always a factor. There is another one, though, and that is the admission that my family is reasonably well off, which skews things somewhat. They have essentially agreed to help me with any start-up loan needed to establish myself somewhere and helped in building up a large amount of savings for me -- I'm extremely reluctant to ask them for any obligation, though, as it feels like an imposition upon them, while the savings mentioned mostly though not entirely were used to clear out some stubborn debt, which it feels nice to be free of. Indeed, I could almost argue that another reason I'm not fond of the idea of owning is going back into another form of debt again (and similarly with a loan from my folks, though with a hell of a lot better lender's rate). Still, arguably I'm in a situation where there's not as much to comparatively worry about.

I may have stretched that one a bit far.

I also have this feeling that I'm so rarely ever bored with where I live, that it still always feels new somehow -- I felt that in the last two places I lived, where even after five years in both cases it somehow seemed like I moved in yesterday. The feeling of home is intangible and movable from location to location.

Pinkpanther's observation is very sound. I will say this -- I was in fact given the opportunity to buy the house I was in by the landlord first, which was flattering. It would have been too much expense, though, and it would also have been a major fixer-upper. My parents are good with that and always have been, with subtle but strong improvements to all their respective properties over time. I can't say I have much of that impulse, I'm incredibly pre-fab on that front -- and I am DEFINITELY not a home gardener or lawn care type of person!

Moving in utter and supreme haste can drive me nuts -- the suddenness of the need to move in December 2002 was a pain and then some, and that experience I will not chose to repeat. To my mind it's therefore important to know how and when to move, then, and that's something that was easy enough with my family's experience -- the Navy would tell them in advance and then it was just a matter of prepping up accordingly. In my case it's now a matter of established long-term leases and early notification -- for the lease renewal, I was formally contacted in August, I think, for the renewal in December, with a variety of options given and the attendant rates. So if I had decided to move again, plenty of time to prep up and search.

http://www.clarian.org/Images/rodales/clipart/women/f_nailbite.jpg

thanks

I've got a similar situation to Pink I suppose, where I fear I'm going to be priced out of the neighborhood I want to live in. (Soulard, St Louis) Right now the Lou is just starting to wake up from a long funk. Houses in the city are cheaper than houses in the burbs but I think that will be reversed in ten years. They're building a new stadium for the Cardinals nearby and it will come with a lot of investments and improvements in downtown. So that's why this is starting to weigh on me. I'm in a good situation that I've already saved a down payment, and mr teeny has a good job there, a dad who's an insurance agent, a brother who's a morgage guy, and an aunt who does real estate, all in the city!

But that depends on the local real estate market. In DC it usually costs more per month to rent than it does to own a comparable piece of real estate (even if you count condo/coop maintenance fees and don't count the mortgage tax deduction). Although DC may not be typical; it has a large transient population, which may keep rental rates extra-high.

in a few years, though, and depending on where i work at that time, a move to NE PA (the land of cheap real estate) MAY be an option.

This thread revival is very timely, because last weekend I got a notice from DC of its "proposed" property re-valuation. Supposedly my place is now worth 2.3 times what I paid for it (and its value increased by 23% just in the last year).

Well I assume you mean the money that would be spent on rent. I have 2 children so we need some space - to rent a decent sized house in London costs a fortune, as it happens it would cost at least twice it costs me to pay the mortgage, although this is somewhat subsidised by profits from previous house sales being used as deposit. But anyway even with no deposit it would be more expensive to rent. So i suppose the savings are used to, you know, *live* (kids are expensive!), have fun and save a little for the future.

Owning the property makes sense in that one day you will be able to sell it or pass it on. Also it's a safety net in that if neccessary we could sell it, move somewhere cheaper in the UK and live off the profit.

And today my mood is glum partially because I'm tired of winter. I hate the early evenings, I hate the colder weather, and this is just the mild SoCal version of same. An actual winter...just, no. So that also limits where I'd like to live and the attendant prices accordingly.

So i suppose the savings are used to, you know, *live* (kids are expensive!), have fun and save a little for the future.

I'm sure kids are expensive! It's one of many reasons why personally I'm glad I don't have any at present. And related to that there's nobody to pass anything onto right now, so.

And, like Ned hinted, you can either live in a
A) beautiful place with some potential for some unforeseen environmental/global/civic/financial disaster, or
B) not-so-beautiful place where there is a slightly smaller chance of some unforeseen environmental/global/civic/financial disaster.

I like to gamble in casinos, but I don't like gamble on shelter... especially when numbers no less than five digits are involved. Unless I'm lucky enough to be able to have that kind of money to easily toss around (which I don't right now)

Though, I regret not taking some course in economics in relation to home ownership. I do admit ignorance there. The way I see it.. the price I pay for renting is made up by the lack of worry and brain real-estate dedicated to all these things homeowners have to balance and fix.

So yeah, full-life renter here, and not regretting it. (I'm also not a decorator/backyard/garden type person, too). That might change if I develop a long term relationship with somebody, but I'm not in a hurry for such a thing right now.

It also helps that renting in Seattle = cheapo, and buying in Seattle = still expensive.

Jen and Martin just bought in Seattle, so they surely will have contradictory advice than what I just gave, though.

DB is right in that it's much cheaper to rent than buy in Seattle, but I decided to take the plunge nonetheless. I purposely picked a neighborhood in which to buy that is still kind of in transition, yet feels right to me. Also key: not saddling myself with a mortgage that could easily sink me if I happened to lose my job or suffer some other financial calamity. (Like what happened to me with my last home [gulp].)

I just want a spot to call my own, permanently, and fix up the way I like. Having a lot of STUFF (= records) also means that I *hate* moving, so the potential transience of a rental lifestyle is not for me.

It's nice knowing that while rents will go up, my mortgage payments never will. I still remember renting a huge studio apt in the West Village circa '92 for dirt cheap, then moving to Boston for a few years, then moving back to NYC only to find I was completely priced out of living in Manhattan.

But as another posted already pointed out: BEWARE THE PROPERTY TAX. Though my mortgage payments for my last place remained fixed, the taxes skyrocketed, making it ultimately unfeasible for me to stay in that place. Thank god Seattle's tax rate is nowhere near that of NYC (insert obligatory curse at Bloomberg for hiking property taxes by over 18%!)...

woohoo!

It's things like that which make me uneasy -- for all the apparent simplicities of rent vs. mortgage it still seems like it's a crapshoot either way depending. Let me also note that given the rates around here I'd still be paying more for a mortgage on a cheap place than the rent I am paying now, even several years after I entertained the idea more seriously of buying and had the money to do so. This might not seem like a problem but my salary is not the highest, though I happily eschew that as opposed to being to not bring my work home with me, to have set hours and to not be part of some bastard corporate grind -- freelance work offsets that further but is subject to fluctuation, as noted above by others, and right now it's been notably lower than even two years before. Even had my saved money been applied to a home purchase as planned, I would also have been saddled with a horrible amount of credit card debt, something I'm certainly not proud of and would be the one thing I would have schooled my ten-years-younger self to have avoided at all costs. There is no point at crying over spilt milk, though, and in all, I now have peace of mind, no debt, some savings still, neighbors who have given me no trouble, responsive landlords and the ability to satisfy needs and caprices. I value all that over a high mortgage, yet more debt payments on top of that and further attendant financial pressure, no question about it.

Of course it does, but I meant from the pov that I could afford the monthly repayments on a more expensive house, but I'd never get a mortgage for enough to buy the house in the first place. My previous mortgage deal (on the house that fell through - sniff) I was paying about £50 less, but I imagine it will be more now, as we'll have to borrow more.

We don't want to appoint a solicitor just yet, we are waiting until we come back from our holiday in July, but I've been looking at GSPC etc anyway, just to give myself a rough idea. It's terrifying. We're not looking for a mansion, not by any means, just a two bedroom flat in Renfrewshire.

Everything we look at is offers over, the only fixed price homes are new builds which are out of our price range anyway. Do you have to have the house surveyed before making an offer? Excuse my ignorance but I'm scared of losing money and getting nothing. Please give me advice, my ignorance blinds even me.

You should talk to a good solicitor before you do anything. Property is a minefield.

Owning rules until shit goes wrong with your house. Now I rent, and it's kind of nice to know that that damp stain creeping up the outside of the wall is NOT MY PROBLEM!

http://www.edu.dudley.gov.uk/teachandlearnresources/dudleycd/sedgley/semis.jpg

A duplex in my world has been any building that can hold two families with separate entrances, but I've never lived anywhere where there were an abundance of two-floor apartments.

xp yes that looks exactly right mark.

Duplex means 'on two floors', Markelby.

it means neither of these things on the real estate market. it means what teeny said it meant. it is confusing. a two-floor apartment is probably best described as a "townhouse" now.

(thanks Teeny btw)

we had an offer accepted and are in the midst of negotiating some improvements, it seems to be going okay and we'll close in a month at the latest.

Actually I really came here to post this link, this is a neat blog showing off some st louis architecture. But why not have a house update while I'm at it!

..& congrats to you too, Chris ...

http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/rfs/

Fuck you!!

I think I must be having some bizzaro-world reaction to the pregnancy hormones, I've been totally calm and mellow about everything. I still have to deal with some contractors before we move in though. :/

PS: 425 square feet isn't a condo, it's a closet.

And Reston is a boring, shitty, horrible condoburb. It's like not even anywhere near the city, either, to be honest.

(runs away)

!!!!damn!!!!
Is that like Okolona or something? Maybe I've asked you this before. I'm telling you, people should really start buying up stuff in Water Valley, Batesville, or basically anywhere less than a half-hour's drive from Oxford. The prices there are bordering on hysterical. $400,000 for a two bedroom dump just because it's walking distance from the Square? WTF?!?

Will, I remember you asking me before. I'm in Am0ry. We used to live in Oxf0rd -- I wish we still had the house we bought there.

How many automobile drivers here lease their vehicles?

If the water pipe breaks in your leased car, does the dealer fix it?

(not that this predicted crash would really affect somewhere like MemTenn)

- can write it off or expense it for business purposes
- want a car that is much more expensive than you can afford
- or if you absolutely have to have a new car every few years

It's not just for rich people though. I think some young people get roped into leasing because they see that they can get a much fancier car for the same monthly payments as whatever they were going to buy.

for those keeping track, things I've now done that I have gone into excruciating detail on ile about why I don't care to do/would never do:
marriage
preggo
home ownership

I do not think it's quite that simple. Also, want a car that is much more expensive than you can afford isn't really correct either if you can just lease it. The reason why it makes sense to lease more expensive cars is because they retain a higher percentage resale value and in a lease you're paying for the depreciation. Also, the upfront money on a lease is lower. It really depends on how much you're willing to spend on a car per month (keeping in mind what you may or may not get back upon selling it if you own it).

Example 1: to purchase a loaded Toyota Prius @$27K-28K

with about $2100K down and 5.75% interest, you'll be paying $550-$600 month (+tax). Of course, the resale of a Prius is very high right now, so it's a really good deal if you have the upfront cash and can make the big payment. But after 60 months (the term of the loan), that same car may not be worth much.

Example 2: lease a new Audi A4 @$31K

with about $500 down, you can lease it for 2 years for $350 a month (+tax). There's a 10K miles limit per year (but you can add to that by paying incrementally more). At the end you don't have any equity, so all of that money is spent on the depreciation of the vehicle.

This blog covers much of the details. High on paranoia, but worth plugging into your RSS reader.

OK, so if you put $2500 down on a 60 month loan, you'd be paying $550/month +tax. So the thing you have to think about is how long you're going to keep the car. If it's only for 2 years and then you're going to sell it, then you're paying a greater percentage of the depreciation because it's a new car. However, it makes more sense if you're going to keep it for a long time.

The best purchase deal is to buy a certified used car that's 2 years old (and still under warranty in case it's a lemon), that way the biggest part of the depreciation has already happened.

This is what I did, but then I learned that with Hondas you don't really need to do that bc they run like a charm and don't really depreciate as extensively as lots of other cars do. I couldn't figure out why the new and used prices at the dealerships weren't so far apart, and I guess that's one reason. Also, I learned belatedly that it's good to buy a new car bc your interest is lower. I'm happy with my car though. But I keep scratching it.

S., you really have a 500 down payment type deal? The one's I saw around these parts when looking into leasing were more like 2500.

Renting Looks Cheaper Than Buying

http://www.moneyweek.com/article/1316/investing/other-viewpoints/ce-renting-cheaper-buying.html

I BOUGHT A 2004 TOYOTA CAMRY WITH $1000 DOWN A 15.75% INTEREST RATE AND THE PAYMENT IS $378 A MONTH.

WE JUST HAD OUR OFFER ACCEPTED ON A HOUSE LAST NIGHT, CLOSE ON HALLOWEEN!

Plus I am still full of rage about our mortgage and credit rating being botched by the mortgage company (aka the in-laws). I need to learn how to forgive.

"The housing bubble has burst; this is just the confirmation."

"The housing market is in trouble right now."

"We have a serious correction taking place in the housing sector."

"The speed of the collapse has been astonishing."

"If we have prices drop for the rest of the year and sales also continue to drop, then we will have a bad situation in housing of balloons popping rather than air coming out," Lereah said.

I think home ownership is surrounded by a lot of myth in the U.S. - everyone says "don't throw away money renting" and acts as though renting=slavery and ownership=freedom. But when the annual cost of renting is between 1/2 and 2/3 the cost of buying, when you're throwing away money on taxes, interest, fees and other costs, and moreover, when your stretching your finances to the limit and exposing yourself to serious risk, seems like ownership can just as easily become slavery.

Also good to keep in mind that there are certain markets that were never really considered to be all that overvalued, like Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Detroit, if I remember correctly.

Aron--

Yeah because mortgages are like whips and chains???? Could you maybe use a better analogy?

Seriously, we bought because we needed a bigger place, had the $$ for a down payment and we wanted to live in a particular neighborhood. We now live in said neighborhood.

We live in a condo so we're sort of taken care of by our condo fees. We joined the maintenance program for 25 bucks and we can get stuff fixed for pretty cheap pretty much whenever we want. For example, our toilet was leaking and they placed a new wax seal on our toilet, which is pretty complicated, you have to take the entire toilet off the floor, etc., etc., and it cost 25 bucks. It would have been a couple hundred if I'd called a plumber.

One of the points that the Economist article made a while back was that you can also build equity by taking the money you save from renting and investing it in other areas.

the money you save from renting

the money you save from renting

the money you save from renting

NOT IN EFFECT.

A month or so ago as I was coming off the Metro there was a guy in a suit standing there handing out flyers and shouting at people to stop throwing money away on rent. That was basically the ultimate sign for me that right now is the worst possible time to be thinking about buying.

Makes perfect sense to me, PARTICULARLY in a time of declining home values.

this kind of presupposes you have the $2400 a month!!!!!

It's like the arguments about leasing vs. buying a car - your payment is lower and you never pay for depreciation! It only makes sense if you're a dumbass who can't go more than three years without a new car, and if you never want to modify the vehicle or put lots of miles on it or use it to haul something (if it's a truck).

(xpost!!!!!)

http://i60.photobucket.com/albums/h39/divehike/2006-05_350x476.jpg

word, east side reprezent. seriously, a home similiar to ours, just a couple of miles away on the west side of I35, would cost about $30k more and not be in near as good of shape. ridiculous.

OK! I'll take my major publication advertising job and go look for a job in that industry in East Austin, thanks for the tips, guys. I mean no offense but that isn't an argument that works in most major cities. The shitty areas are still really, really over-priced due to speculators.

And no, no one said anything about different strategies for different areas. If I lived in New York or San Francisco or DC, obviously ownership would be out of the question and bad value for anyone but top-10%ers. But for the vast majority of the country (including many or most medium and large-ish cities), you can buy smart.

The THING IS, what the THING IS HERE, is that a lot of people (in the world, not necessarily on this thread) are acting like the one single asset they've put all their money in, at tremendous risk, is a GREAT INVESTMENT, and that home equity is the holy grail. it's a con game and they've all been taken.

If you don't fall for that, and get something you can afford and live in with your family and not give yourself the kind of commute where you wind up with type II diabetes because you eat breakfast and dinner at truck stops, and you get a traditional lending product instead of fancy-dancy illusionist negative amortization bullshit, hey hey. good for you. redecorate at will. that's smart buying.

everything else is not. homes are not investments and they never have been. homes are things where you get to sleep and take shits and you don't get too hot or cold or rained on.

haha.

seriously though, how is a home, and more importantly the land it sits on, not an investment?

Explain how this situation would be any better for you if you were renting?

Explain how this situation would be any better for you if you were renting?

walking away from a lease is much easier than walking away from a mortgage.

1) I am old *sob*

2)I found I had (relative) job and by extension financial security

3) I thought, I've liked Oxford enough to stay for 12 years so why not?

4) I went from being in the unusual situation of having the privilege of staying in the same rented place for 10 years to the usual situation of having to move after a few months and associated hassle.

Am I the only person who thinks this is kind of crazy? I can see underpricing records, books, cd's, that sort of thing, but a car or house? No way. I mean, maybe people do this and I don't know what I'm talking about.

People who get ARMs are incredibly foolish.

If we hadn't purchased our place, we wouldn't be in a position to consider buying a single-family in the next 18 months. Also, we bought 5 years ago and the value of places in our neighborhood is still rising thanks to gentrificatioin, unlike all of the hoity-toity neighborhoods around the city.

Seriously, the correct answer depends on your needs/situation; most of this argument seems kind of dumb?

A WINNER IS ME

I don't think it's easy Tom but I don't think the fear of job loss is a valid reason to avoid buying as you could apply that fear to any venture in life. Hopefully someone in the position to buy a home has other aspects of their finances in stable enough position that they could handle job loss just like any other life event (baby, school, etc.) without 'oh noes! homeless!' worries.

I'm talking about a situation such as: you buy a house for $100K, it appreciates to $200K and you're sitting pretty. Then a crash comes and its worth plunges to $160K, you lose your job and can't make payments. If you try getting what it's then worth, $160K, you may not sell before it's foreclosed, so you underprice it at $140K and you get a quick sale. You're still ahead of the game cause you only paid $100K. These numbers are exagerated for illustration, but the principal applies if you've owned your house for 5+ years in a once-rising market. And agian, I'm not saying everyone can do this, but many can (me, for instance).

-with eminent domain being as powerful a force as it is today, there's no way of guaranteeing that you'll get to keep the home you buy, unless you hire a flatbed truck to move it to a different neighborhood. yes, they compensate you at or above market value for the taking, but it denies you of the chance to sell the home on your own terms. (in california, november's prop 90 initiative could severely limit localities' police power in eminent domain cases -- this is both good and potentially devastating for the field of urban planning. my own opinions are mixed.)

-there's no guarantee that you'll get to tear down what you bought and build your dream home (or make any kind of crazy addition to the structure, or build beyond the allowable FAR). you still have to comply with local regulations, and go through the proper channels if you want a variance from the existing code. you should be aware of this before you buy -- a lot of people don't know, and then get all "b-b-but i paid a million dollars for this!!" caveat emptor and shit.

-you can buy a house, but you can't buy a neighborhood (you can be part of an HOA, but even then your powers are limited). guess what: neighborhoods change. that ocean view you have, that you're banking on having around forever for the sake of property values -- well, it might be blocked by something else a year from now. that construction that's going on near your house and causing all that racket? tough shit, progress is not going to halt just because you're too lazy to go out and buy noise-cancelling headphones.

Particularly considering that our condo was always intended as a starter-interim residence, I can't think of a single scenario where this is an issue for me.

-there's no guarantee that you'll get to tear down what you bought and build your dream home (or make any kind of crazy addition to the structure, or build beyond the allowable FAR). you still have to comply with local regulations, and go through the proper channels if you want a variance from the existing code. you should be aware of this before you buy -- a lot of people don't know, and then get all "b-b-but i paid a million dollars for this!!" caveat emptor and shit.

I would be shocked if this wasn't a non-issue for the vast majority of home buyers; regardless, this is the type of thing a real estate agent warns you about when you start looking at fixer-uppers.

that construction that's going on near your house and causing all that racket? tough shit, progress is not going to halt just because you're too lazy to go out and buy noise-cancelling headphones.

I'm not entirely certain this makes sense...?

I'm not entirely certain this makes sense...?

what i'm saying is that buying a home entitles you to one thing: a home (and usually the plot of land it's on, with certain rules imposed). you can work with neighborhood associations on some quality-of-life issues in the area, but don't think that you can or should control everything that goes on in the neighborhood JUST because you own a little plot of land. it isn't all about you -- sometimes projects need to be built, and the construction and noise are a necessary byproduct of that.

I know that some people think that owning a home gives them the right to run the neighborhood but that doesn't describe the majority of people, does it???

-- Dr Morbius (wjwe...) (webmail), September 26th, 2006 9:51 AM. (later)

http://media.monstersandcritics.com/articles/1089834/article_images/repoman2.jpg

If I was still using a .sig file, I would totally use that.

City of South Pasadena to thread!

Not revived for five years now after everything? And some of us were despondent even then!

Still happily renting. Still in the same place, actually!

NED YOU ARE JUST LUCKY AND WEIRD OK

This I grant.

Fuck buying a house. Like I'm going to live the remaining 30-odd years of my life in poverty just to gain an asset that I can't sell because I have to live in it.

do any nyc ilxors own? i thought gabbneb might own an apartment on the ues or something but upthread he says he rents. i am enough of a yuppie to have a minor fantasy about buying a brownstone.

Suprised I never posted on this thread before. I want to own, I really want to own. Why? Not for the asset or the investment. For the security of a roof over my head that I wont be pitched out of when I'm an OAP. It scares the shit out of me to think about (me and Jim had a discussion about this once), that renting when you're older may boil down to living in council estates eating canned beans. For me, it feels that way. Melbourne has gone insane with home costs - they now say even buying in cheap fringe outer estates is beyond the "standard" cost threshold (approx $200k for land, so I guess $300k all up?). In the suburb I live in, a 1brm apaartment would go for $300k-$400k. A small, tiny 2brm house? Could be up to a million. It is insane and depressing.

do any nyc ilxors own? i thought gabbneb might own an apartment on the ues or something but upthread he says he rents. i am enough of a yuppie to have a minor fantasy about buying a brownstone.

― max, Monday, March 28, 2011 11:13 PM (8 minutes ago)

i can think of 3 but neither of them post very much anymore.

burt_stanton

ive trolled the listings and there are some 1 and 2 bdrs in my neighborhood that are... "surprisingly affordable," if i could save up the down payment. "surprisingly affordable" in the sense that the same price would buy me a whole house anywhere else in the country.

rereading this thread. wow, i was smart once upon a time.

i have this to add: major debt is no way to live. the 30-year mortgage is no way to live, especially since these days no one knows what life will be like six months from now. adjustable-rate mortgages are a scam. your return on investment as a renter is that your obligation is never more than one year out (sometimes it's one month out). you can bail at the end of your lease and still have decent credit.

if you're determined to buy at some point, save up and get as close as you can to buying the property outright. and treat it as an actual HOME and not an investment. the resale value shouldn't matter. if you wanna gamble, take that shit to vegas.

WORD

i've gotten a bit suze orman in my old age (of 34).

I wonder what bright real estate agent perpetuated the myth that the smartest thing to do with your money is to buy a house

the FHA?

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204409904574350432677038184.html

max, dmr owns. Can't think who else.

Can anyone talk about this crash that's supposedly going to happen in 2007? I've heard it from several good sources.
― Spencer Chow (spencermfi), Wednesday, September 21, 2005 4:18 PM (5 years ago)

hahahahaha

Renter for life. We could probably afford in Chicago, but it wouldn't be in the areas where I want to live most, and the place would probably be smaller than our current one. I'd rather rent.

Own my own place, but mortgages suck.

agreed, im hating owning right now.

three weeks into trying to buy a place, looks like we are going to rent again, since I can't get preapproved for enough to allow me to purchase anything that isn't a crack house.

Revive!

I really like renting but I am thinking about buying again. Talk me out of it.

it makes it harder to pick up and light out for the territory when everything goes to shit.

That's good.

Keep going

When you rent, whatever goes wrong with your house is somebody else's problem. When you own, everything is your problem. And there will be problems.

Yep.

Now someone come and say they love owning. Does anyone normal actually say that?

when you own you can paint the walls any color you want

The only reasons I love owning are that we bought in 1987, we bought the right house in the right location, and we paid off the mortgage in 2002. Otherwise, the renting vs. owning equation has too many variables to say one is inherently better than the other. The answer is hidden in a multitude of details.

When you own, everything is your problem. And there will be problems.

And if it's a condo, it's your problem and also your obligation to try and perform the task of herding cats that is getting your association on the same page about addressing problems.

I'd consider owning a house, but no way will I ever be buying a condo if and when I ever get out of this place.

The only thing that is keeping me from owning is the massive amount of money it would cost to live where I want.

renting is fucking bullshit but then again so is a mortgage, best to squat on BLM land and bunker down

It absolutely all depends on where you live and where you may want to live.

For us, owning still seems to be the best option. But that's because we live in one of the cheapest markets with hardly any ups and downs as experienced elsewhere.

Then there's the factor that our state is apparently the only state in the union where the landlord is not required to give you a fit place to live. To quote from a legal assistance group based here, "This means the floor can be rotten, the roof can leak, and the plumbing does not work." Landlords also do have to "make any repairs to the home or common areas." So there's that.

And finally, if you miss a payment or two, it's a lot easier for a landlord to evict you than it is for a bank to foreclose on you. Hell, even if the bank forecloses on you, you might still be able to live within the house for another six months.

Landlords also do not have to ...

Good lord, that is dreadful!

do you live in the 19th century

Social housing rules. Cheap rents, I got a £1700 boiler upgrade last year that was totally paid for by "hard working Britain". Even when I have been earning half decent money I have never been tempted to rent or buy because I have always been completely comfortable with living in a council house in various shit areas. No fretting over interest rates and if the area is too shit the mutual exchange system is a viable escape option. Sure you do have to be prepared for combat every time you walk outside, but it isn't that bad!