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A comment on Renting vs. Owning a Home, by State. Parent comment

Re:Renting vs. Owning a Home, by State by bachmeier on Saturday September 02, 2023 @04:48PM (#37365399)
After I bought my house, the combination of maintenance, taxes, insurance, and mortgage interest was quite a bit higher than what I paid in rent (as I recall, $400/month or more). That's money down the drain.

I could have put $400 per month plus the entire principal repayment in the stock market. I'd have had less headache, less time spent on maintaining the property, and less stress from figuring out how to deal with problems while working crazy hours, plus a much better return. In my case, the house was a terrible investment. I didn't buy it as an investment (if I had, I'd have failed miserably).

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Re:Renting vs. Owning a Home, by State by pdonis on Saturday September 02, 2023 @08:01PM (#37366530)
> I didn't buy it as an investment

Yes. So was buying the house a good idea for you, all things considered?

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Re:Renting vs. Owning a Home, by State by bachmeier on Sunday September 03, 2023 @06:05PM (#37375034)
Yes. A terrible investment relative to the stock market (I could easily pay cash for my house right now if I'd rented and put the leftover money in the stock market) but a good purchase. The answer would have been very different if had no kids.
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Re:Renting vs. Owning a Home, by State by reducesuffering on Sunday September 03, 2023 @03:54AM (#37368542)
It’s not that simple. If your principal is ~$1.5k/mth, then you actually own an extra $1.1k/mth, but it’s invested into SFH real estate rather than stock market. Then there’s the opportunity cost trade-off of the down payment being invested in SFH real estate or stock market.

Maintenance problems can be solved purely by your equity savings put towards handymen. As that is exactly what most property owners do that would be renting to you.

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Re:Renting vs. Owning a Home, by State by bachmeier on Sunday September 03, 2023 @06:02PM (#37375015)
> If your principal is ~$1.5k/mth, then you actually own an extra $1.1k/mth

The cost of the house (not counting principal repayment) was $400 above my rent, not $400.

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Re:Renting vs. Owning a Home, by State by reducesuffering on Monday September 04, 2023 @06:27AM (#37379070)
If your monthly PITI payment is $4k, principal $1.5k, rent $3.6k, then your net worth hit is actually only $2.5k/mth from the house.

If you’re saying interest, taxes, and insurance were all $4k/mth, $400/mth, then sure, but people usually don’t talk about the costs of their mortgage that way.

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