Funnily enough, I left a comparable (to Boston, in incomes, house prices, political attitudes, etc.) metro for a smaller city in a stereotypical "red state", which the residents of my former city are fond of describing as a third-world country. My quality of life has increased in almost all the ways I care about.

I entered into a 30-year mortgage at slightly above 3% last year, with a reasonable amount of money down, and my mortgage payments plus tax on a bigger and newer house are substantially less than what I used to pay in rent. Plus I deal with less traffic, I encounter more diversity in my day-to-day life, and people, even the less well-to-do, are happier here. The only real downside has been that overall the availability and quality of fine dining is less here.

Naturally, people don't move solely for the ability to buy a cheaper house, but it is something worth considering, depending on your circumstances. I was in a similar boat as yours before I moved, where I could theoretically have afforded a house where I was, but I didn't want to.

>Funnily enough, I left a comparable (to Boston, in incomes, house prices, political attitudes, etc.) metro for a smaller city in a stereotypical "red state", which the residents of my former city are fond of describing as a third-world country. My quality of life has increased in almost all the ways I care about.

I'm having anxiety about moving from downstate New York to Lexington, Kentucky. I've spent time there, I enjoy the city and the surrounding area, but I keep coming back to "If I don't like it I can always move back", instead of "The upsides far outweigh the downsides. You'll like it."

Thanks for this.

If you like the outdoors, Lexington is great. Plenty of hiking, kayaking, fishing, rock climbing, etc. within a short drive. It is a college town, so it is way more progressive than the backwoods parts of the state. You will hear different accents for sure. Neat seasonal events like Keeneland, plenty of scenic drives to the smaller surrounding cities (things like bourbon distillery tours and small museums in/around Frankfort) and lots of Mexican food.

Cincinnati is close and has even more amenities like Jungle Jim's (2x giant grocery stores, 100% go here), CAM, theme parks, Union Terminal and niche museums (Sign Museum, VOA, Air Force Museum in Dayton), various pinball arcades, and places like Microcenter.

== Funnily enough, I left a comparable (to Boston, in incomes, house prices, political attitudes, etc.) metro for a smaller city in a stereotypical "red state", which the residents of my former city are fond of describing as a third-world country.==

Can you name the cities?

I won't name them out of privacy concerns, but I went from a major coastal city (metro population over 3 million) in a state that reliably votes blue to a small city (metro population under half a million) in a state that reliably votes red.

Not sure how you have privacy concerns in metros that large, but I’d be interested to hear what the people in your new metro area say about your old metro area.

Either way, you still moved to a city, so the local politics aren’t likely all that different. Though you did make sure to mention it a few times.

From the point of view of my new city, there's typical banter about how silly/crazy/whatever "those people over there" are, though there is a general consensus that the people of my old city are richer. There's no equivalent to the people of my old city dismissing this region as a "shithole" or "third-world country", I guess because objectively there is more wealth there. People here generally feel that they are freer here and prefer to make that tradeoff against more money.

I’m fascinated by how different people define being “free”. From my perspective legal sports betting, legal medical and recreational marijuana, not banning books, not dictating what teachers can/can’t teach, freedom to protest without being run-over, biometric privacy, and choice for women makes for a “freer” place than having loose gun laws and slightly lower taxes.

I own in the GBA.

2.6% interest rate.

1.2% property tax rate.

Look for deals; some places need work, or don’t have AC, but can be had for cheap. Most buyers in the GBA don’t want a house that needs even a new kitchen, much less some walls knocked down.

^This is a great piece of advice in any market. Where I do business, loads of potential buyers are hardly willing to paint let alone do more substantial updates, so they continue to rent and believe they are getting priced out of the market. Meanwhile, I could show them dozens of perfectly good starter homes if they were willing to build some sweat equity. Too many people believe their first or even second home purchase should be their "dream home" but that's not a realistic perspective on housing for the majority.

One of my realtors once said that they had a client who refused to move into a place that didn’t have granite countertops.

Like seriously.. replacing a countertop is not hard!

I just got off the phone with a first time buyer. Thinks he has to be in expensive area X, where his budget will get him a junker, but I could take him a ten minute drive away to area Y where he could buy a great starter home. But no, that area isn’t cool enough. And rates of appreciation in both areas are basically the same.

The real estate trilemma: affordable, high quality of life, near good jobs; pick no more than two. (Or have the government mandate that it's all three, somehow.)

Does the school district have something to do with it?

I don't think you should buy a house unless you really need one. The transaction and maintenance costs are usually downplayed, and you don't know how it will do as an investment. If you don't need a house save and invest.

I don't care how it will do as an investment, I don't like paying thousands of dollars a month to somebody else in the form of rent.

I don't care so much about paying rent. What I care about is what happened to me, back in 2020. During the pandemic, the wealthy fled Manhattan and created a buying frenzy in Upstate NY, where I live. My landlady decided it was in her interest to cash in on that; and, so, when the whole world was being turned upside down, I got the news that I would have to look for another place to live. I bought a condo solely for the control it offered me. As far as I'm concerned, nobody gets to do that to me again.

It's usually a trade off between paying someone for rent, or paying someone else interest (and others for tax, maintenance, etc.)

You can't really take the investment aspect or any of these others out of the analysis if you want to understand what's best for you. Particularly in countries with policies to encourage/subsidize home ownership the answer is often, "buy a place", but not always.

Interest is tax deductible, and if you have an investment property you can write off a lot of things.

No tax benefits go to renters. That's one of many considerations here other than raw liabilities.

This all depends on jurisdiction of course.

Agree a investment property is a whole other can of worms, but not really relevant on the "should I buy or rent, personally" decision. For that one, you need to compare to other investments, which is in many ways more straightforward.

However you can write off your mortgage interest payments as a tax-deductible expense, which you don't benefit from as a renter; plus you're building equity that you can then resell later. There are always exceptions, but generally in the long run, at least in the US, you're much better off owning than renting.

Mortgage interest deduction is only available for people who itemize, i.e. people who owe more federal income tax than the standard deduction. Per IRS statistics, only 11% of tax filers itemized in 2019. I would bet this deduction does not benefit anyone who is struggling to decide between renting or buying.

With increasing housing costs and property taxes; it's getting easier and easier to surpass the standard deduction. If your state has income taxes, even easier.

Example scenario: New >$3000/mo mortgage, $2000/mo to interest and property taxes = $24k. Have a 5% state income tax?, on $60k, that's another $3k deduction.

==I would bet this deduction does not benefit anyone who is struggling to decide between renting or buying.==

I can tell you from personal experience that you are wrong.

Needs are pretty broad. A lot of people "need" home ownership to feel a sense of security and engage in the type of activities that make them happy

Sure, buying doesn't always result in a positive return, but renting is guaranteed to not. Housing is usually a decent investment.

> but renting is guaranteed to not.

This is only true if you assume the same housing at the same cost/mo (including everything). And assume timelines. Usually this isn't the case, so there are definitely scenarios where you are better off renting.

I guess I don't follow - if you rent, for any period of time (sure, I'm slightly assuming a longer period of time - say, >1 year), you will give the landlord rent money over that duration, and walk away with ~nothing at the end. I'm not saying it's impossible to lose LESS with buying unwisely / unluckily, of course.

You have to factor in everything. It's not just rent payment vs. mortgage payment, it's everything you spend on housing (taxes, repairs, etc.) in two scenarios.

In any situation where the rental scenario results in extra cash flow that you then invest, you can end up ahead in total, sometimes significantly so. It's all complicated by the fact that you are rarely comparing rent vs. buy on the actual same property.

Remember also in the "buy" scenario you have to include closing costs etc. which can affect your timeline. Your 1yr is unrealistic, you'll eat 5-10% of sale price on just that, typically, which may be way more than rent.