Baby boomers are becoming homeless at a rate not seen since the Great Depression

Re:Baby boomers are becoming homeless at a rate not seen sin... by jorvi on Monday September 25, 2023 @07:38AM (#37642187)

Yup. It might be painful for homeowners in the global West to realize, but for a healthy housing market, owning a house or renting a house needs to end up having the same amount of return on a 5-10-20-30-50 year timeline.

The benefit of owning a house should be that you get to customize it to your liking. The benefit of a rental should be that you can switch up relatively quickly.

Houses being an investment vehicle is slowly poisoning society. Having a decent roof of your head is a human right, just like access to clean water or healthy food is.

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Re:Baby boomers are becoming homeless at a rate not seen sin... by rootusrootus on Monday September 25, 2023 @10:20AM (#37644211)

Why would owning and renting need to have identical economic ROI? As you yourself point out, there are non-monetary benefits with both choices. The renter is buying convenience. The owner is selling convenience.

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Re:Baby boomers are becoming homeless at a rate not seen sin... by jjav on Monday September 25, 2023 @10:34PM (#37653631)

> owning a house or renting a house needs to end up having the same amount of return on a 5-10-20-30-50 year timeline

This is clearly impossible. I think everyone can agree that a house is worth something. It's a roof over your head, so that's worth something nonzero.

So if you own it, you own some value. Might be low, might be lower than what you paid initially, but it's worth something nonetheless.

If you perpetually rent you own nothing, so your equity is always $0.

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