Is owning a home all it's cracked up to be?

There are places that are very affordable.
Even in CA.
But whether you can live there depends on finding a job in your field in those places.


I don't find anything inherently 'better' about owning rather than renting.
I guess, now that I am domesticated with family, it feels more stable that the house is ours.
That is about it, though.

 

Our plan is to buy a home in the next couple of years, raise our kids and retire there. We'll take a 30-year note but try to pay it off in 15. If we can do that, we'll greatly downsize once the kids are away at college or rehab and buy a pull-behind RV so we can traipse around the country doing old-people stuff.

 

Your wife will lose your nest egg at the first casino you visit.

 

I've heard the housing market will continue to grow for about 8 more years and then flop again because Trump rolled back all The Big Short shit you see. I've heard 8 years is when it might go, but it will go again. You can always count on greed.

 

I grew up in an apartment building with a super. I lived in dorms, and now another apartment with on-site maintenance. I can't fix a darn thing. I've also never aspired to own a house because I didn't live in one.

Now, an apartment in Manhattan not-Kansas, that's another matter. But I don't ever expect to ever be able to afford it.

So I'll continue to be the random renter surrounded by condo owners, and take advantage of the benefits of living in their nice building.

 

I can't fix a darn thing. Fortunately, wife has fixed the garbage disposal twice and the garage door once.

 

For me, there have been pros and cons. But the cons far outnumber the pros.

I went from renting an apartment to owning a house. What I should have done is rent a house.

 

Why

 

You don't stumble into homeownership by accident. Like a lot of things, you have to plan and work for it. Having owned my home(s) for the last 35 years, yes, it's worth it. (We also were fortunate in that after we bought our first house back in the mid-80s, we moved seven or eight years later and nearly doubled our money.)

 

I'm saving $300 on my mortgage every month versus renting. Every year that I lived in my hamlet in the DFW area, my rent jumped. I've only had one big expense in the past year but not having to deal with awful apartment neighbors and the greedy assholes that run apartment complexes totally weighs out that I had to deal with my own plumbing issue instead of calling maintenance.

I had wanted to buy a house for five years before I finally got serious, got in a really good financial place with work, got my financial paperwork and a decent down payment together and made my move. No regrets thus far.

 

There is no nest. There is no egg.

Try to plan out where you see yourself in 30-35 years. Do you want to live elsewhere? For me... it's a beach town once the kids are out of high school.

Thus, I made a crucial decision a decade ago when we moved. Bought a house but did a 15-year mortgage and not a 30. Slightly smaller than we qualified for. Since that time, much has changed. I've gotten divorced BUT I've also made a bit more money. My mortgage has stayed the game all ten years -- the property taxes go up a little but, otherwise, it's the same damn $1,300. A 30-year would have been about $1,100.

For the extra $200, I'll have a house free and clear by 2023. In time for when the kids are out of the house and I can move to the sand. I will have to cut a check for half the equity for my former wife (about $100,000) but I'll be able to take that $100,000 in equity with me. I'll either buy a place there or I'll rent for a year and, perhaps, buy a distressed property. (Not having a high-spending wife anymore also has built my savings.)

A lot of this is economy-based, too. I live where it's cheap. If I lived on the coasts, I would probably wait until the next correction/recession to buy. Squirrel some money away when times are good. Buy when it's bad. Always, always, always try and buy a house in a good school district, even if it's smaller. Those always move faster.

 

It's a great investment - if you know what you're doing.