alt Hacker NewsOften, houses are depreciating assets that are expensive to maintain, but people take mortgage and buy them anyway. Often, renting is cheaper than buying, but people buy anyway, because they like the idea of owning their home. Often, people buy a home, because suitable homes are not available to rent.
Money is only a means to an end. It has no inherent value. And very often, the subjective value of a thing is essentially unrelated to the monetary value.
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In addition, you get countries like the UK where renting is very precarious. You might be forced to move every year, after a year your landlord can turf you out with only a few months' notice, you aren't allowed to modify the house in any way even putting a picture-hook into the wall or redecorating a room, etc. Since most people cannot afford to buy a house outright, a mortgage is necessary to avoid this.
There are maintenance requirements to home ownership, absolutely. And some are not cheap.
But there is absolutely a segment on HN who will act like home ownership is nothing more than pulling out a card for the next four digit expense every month or more.
“What are you going to do when (not if) you hot water dies? And then you need a roof? Oops your house needs painting and new appliances and now the AC is gone too, what about pest control, and hopefully your sewer line doesn’t collapse? Can’t handle all that happening to you? Can you realllly afford a house then?”
You can believe that if you like of course, but I am definitely not teaching my children that.
Renting cheaper than owning sounds like a very short-term view.
My dad explained to me the nice thing about a 30 year fixed mortgage in simple terms: 10, 20, up to 30 years later ... your "rent" is the same.
It's a simple experiment to see what a person's rent was going for 30 years ago in your community and then see what a person with a typical 30-year mortgage would have paid each month 30 years ago. Because one of those two is still paying the same monthly amount today and about to have an asset they can pass along to their kids or spouse (or cash-out if they want to retire to live in a trailer in Eloy, Arizona).