Real Estate: Should You Rent Or Buy?

Buying - One of the most common reasons people are hesitant to buy a home is because they feel like it’s a long-term commitment. However, buying actually has a lot of benefits for people wanting to invest in their future. The value of a home increases over time and the median monthly homeowner cost is less than renting.
Renting - Although there are some benefits of renting, it doesn't always make sense to rent when you could be building equity in your own place. With rent prices on the rise, it can be difficult for someone who is just starting out to save money for a down payment or get approved for a mortgage even with low credit scores.

 
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ellawhite

Buying - One of the most common reasons people are hesitant to buy a home is because they feel like it's a long term commitment. However, buying actually has a lot of benefits for people wanting to invest in their future. The value of a home increases over time and the median monthly homeowner cost is less than renting.
Renting - Although there are some benefits of renting, it doesn't always make sense to rent when you could be building equity in your own place. With rent prices on the rise, it can be difficult for someone who is just starting out to save money for a down payment or get approved for a mortgage even with low credit scores.

Honestly, this gives the impression of a person who has no idea what the relative benefits of buying or renting are except for what they read in one of those "You Won't Believe This One Simple Trick to Becoming Wealthy!" clickbait articles.

The benefits of homeownership are personal stability, advantageous financing rates, building home equity, and favorable tax treatment.  On the flip side, down payments can be tough, you are locking that equity up in a fairly illiquid asset, and most importantly, you have to maintain your home.  If one bad Nor'easter comes through and does a number on your home and you aren't properly insured, or even if you are, that is an expensive proposition.  Roof leaks?  Boiler breaks?  Septic system goes kaput?  That's on you.  Not only do you have to pay for that work, you have to spend hours bidding it out and making sure it gets done, not to mention the stress.  People seem to think that landlords sit around collecting checks, smoking cigars, and laughing heartily over their vast profits.  The truth is maintaining a property is a lift, and while a single family home is a bit easier, it's no walk in the park.

Also, you absolutely shouldn't buy if you don't expect to be in one place for 5+ years - the transaction costs of buying/selling a home are substantial.  Renting allows you the ability to explore new places, upgrade or downgrade your living situation without making a permanent and expensive commitment, and as mentioned, gives you the flexibility of pushing the costs of maintenance on to someone else.

 
InvestmentSpanker

You just wasted your breath responding to a spam account lol. OP is clearly a spam / troll / robot / whatever 

Sure, but there may be people reading along who could use the information or advice.  Most of the people on this site are ill-informed about the subject they speak on (including myself, occasionally) or just straight up trolls.  No one is going to change their minds, but stopping those people  from infecting others with their shitty opinions is a worthy cause.

 

For landlords and investor/owners repairs and maintenance can become a pain for older properties. 

Even with a newer property I had a tenant come up with a wild excuse to move out.

"A scorpion was hanging down from the ceiling and almost stung my baby son, so we moved out the next day."

 

I think renting is criminally underrated. My brother-in-law with very shaky finances leveraged up everything six months ago to buy a house b/c "it was a smart investment". Well, today they are incredibly house poor and I can tell every time I'm with him how stressed he is. There are tons of people like him that bought in the past two years. I really hope it works out.

My wife and I rent. Does it always feel great? No. And at some point in the (hopefully near) future we will buy, but we are not in a rush. In the meantime, I've been able to leverage a would-be down payment into multiple PE investments that are, as I sit today, going to return me far more than a home would have over that same time period. There's an opportunity cost to owning a home, especially when you are young. Not everyone is fortunate to have good investment opportunities come their way, but if you are someone that does, I'd hesitate to buy just cuz. 

 

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