When there’s almost no hope of owning a home ever, why bother saving? If I hadn’t gotten a home right before the housing market went to shit, I’d be discouraged too. As nice as it is seeing my little condo skyrocket in value, I’d rather all homeowners lost value in their homes if it meant home-buying was easier for more people. It doesn’t help having a place that’s doubled in value if every other home on the market has also doubled in value along with it.
Helen is living in her car, trying to feed her kids
She got laid off of work and her house was repossessed
It’s hard to think clearly when it’s 38 degrees
Desperate people have been known to render desperate deeds
But when she shot that family and moved into their home
The paper read she suffered from dementia
- NOFX, The Irrationality of Rationality
The Daily did a good piece about several weeks ago. https://youtu.be/MVVW0symuu8
My reason to save was always retirement, end of life care, etc. And real talk, the money sink into my 401k is doing better than the money I’m sinking into the house I was lucky enough to score 5 years ago.
My main reason to buy a house was not because real estate was a better investment for me. It wasn’t. Like many of us, I hated my landlords, hated the fact that nothing ever got fixed in my rentals, hated noisy neighbors that were a wall away, etc.
It also screws people like you over. Changing homes is going to be hell. When prices rise the variance between an OK home and a pretty nice home will shrink. Just like rents are getting squeezed. There’s an upper cap on most types of homes in specific locations (at least until the corps buy them all) as there is with rent. So we’ll end up seeing houses that used to be $1-200k difference become a lot closer in price. Meaning why would anyone sell to downsize if the trade-off isn’t worth it?
If I hadn’t gotten a home right before the housing market went to shit, I’d be discouraged too.
Same. My family hit the lottery when we decided to buy a house when the covid pandemic was tanking the market. Locked in a mortgage at around 2.25% and feel so privileged every day for it. The apartment we lived in at the time said they were upping the rent nearly 30% when we were due to renew, so we started looking at houses. We were incredibly lucky that we met someone entirely by chance who was planning on selling their home around the same time our apartment lease was due to renew. They never even listed their house on the market so we didn’t have to deal with getting into a bidding war. And it was within our budget. And I got a raise at work right before we signed the papers (we were already gonna be able to afford it, but just barely). The stars aligned in so many ways at such an uncertain time in our lives.
It’s one of the few things that gives me comfort in trying times. So many things could go wrong, but we’ve got a house with a fixed mortgage and a very low interest rate and a half acre of land for our kid to run around and play in. I’d say my general anxiety levels have been lower since buying a house cause it just passively comforts me to have gotten so lucky. Even though maintaining a home is a big responsibility compared to renting an apartment, it’s totally worth it, and I’ve enjoyed becoming more handy over the years as things have needed fixing.
With any luck, we’ll never move again. It’s a nice place about 15 minutes from the nearest town, which is already a rural area, so there’s little light pollution so the stargazing opportunities are nice. Hoping to eventually add some solar panels to the roof to lower the energy bill one of these days.
If we were still living in a basic apartment and paying effectively the same amount in rent that we’re currently paying in mortgage for a 3 bed 2 bath house with a garage, I’d be depressed as fuck about it every day.
I’d like if home-buying was more affordable, but we are still stuck in the supply problem. My brother put his house on the market and priced it the highest any house in his neighbors sold for. He got an offer for that in 2 weeks. The housing value will crash if the market get flooded, but home builders don’t want that.
Because there is more to life than just owning a home? How about having some buffer in the event you lose your job, or get sick, or a million other reasons. You’re way too fixated on the idea of owning a house.
There’s more to it than the idea of owning a home. A 30-year fixed mortgage means your “rent” will be the same* for 30 years. Then you just… Don’t have to pay it any more. Need to move? That’s cool, you can just take that equity you’ve got and put it towards your next house.
* yes, I know property tax and insurance is a thing. The bulk of the payment is for principal and interest
