Re:The Rise of the Forever Renters
by blackguardx on Saturday December 23, 2023 @04:02PM
(#38748201)
What city do you live in now? When I lived in Seattle, most of the suburbs with 3k sqft houses weren't that walkable.
Re:The Rise of the Forever Renters
by whateveracct on Sunday December 24, 2023 @01:43AM
(#38751663)
I moved to a Tacoma suburb instead. Tacoma is a very cool city in its own right! It's my main city I do stuff in.
It must be nice to get a mortgage at ~3.1% or less.
Do you realize that you would be paying over 50% more per month for that same mortgage today?
Would you still consider that a super good deal that you can't imagine anyone not taking?
Rate lock-in isn't that great with a high interest rate, because you are going to need to pay thousands to refinance.
I get where you're coming from, but it's a different analysis today than it was 3 years ago.
Re:The Rise of the Forever Renters
by whateveracct on Sunday December 24, 2023 @01:44AM
(#38751669)
Oh yeah right now - it's time to rent. If this was the economy in summer of 2020, I would've probably kept rolling with my apartment (which I did like a lot) while continuing to stash away liquid savings for when buying a house became a good deal again.
But this article is about "Forever" Renters. I highly doubt buying a house will never be worth it if you follow the above path.
And my house is 3k sqft vs the 800 I had in the city. And that space is put to work: Proper office, guestroom, gym room, much larger and nicer kitchen (which in turn saves me even more money because I cook more), charcoal grill outside, room for more guitars and drums, proper dining room for hosting family gatherings, a porch I can sit and smoke on. The list goes on.
Grocery store is walkable and the neighborhood is nice to walk in for exercise. City experiences are 20-40 min away depending on which city I wanna hang out in. I guess I have to have a car but I had one in the city anyways since I liked to drive to destinations around Seattle. It's an old Civic still kicking so it's pretty cheap all told.
For the same money per month, locked in for years. If I renewed my lease in 2020 during the pandemic instead of owning, I'd be materially less well off.