> The typical employment lifecycle of an engineer is:
Get frustrated by the current company culture and/or benefits,
let this frustration sit for way too long,
snap
and choose a random company whose recruiter just happened to reach out,
join there,
and repeat the cycle all over again.<p>It's scary how real this is, but it's easy to say "don't do that", when all the inhibitions about leaving your current job rotate around some seriously bottom levels of Maslow's hierarchy of needs - you literally could be without home and (in the US) healthcare if you do this precipitously or without somewhere to jump to, or if you make a poor choice in jumping.<p>Not saying it's good to sit pat until things get so bad you can't, but there's real scary things behind folk's decisions to stay and weather the horseshit at a place.
I grew up in Germany, where, for reasons I don't really know or understand right now, paying rent has been common and normal across a large part of the population since long before I was born. Buying an apartment or even house to live in almost seemed to be more like a "luxury" for rich people to me.<p>I moved to the US a decade ago, and (I knew this before) the mindset seems to be that renting is only a temporary situation, until you finally settle down buying "your" house to raise your family in. People talk about their "first house" or "starter home", terms that aren't really common in Germany at all. Buying property isn't totally uncommon there, but often happens much later in life, and many people are happy never doing so at all.<p>I always felt that differing mindset has been doing me a service, as I feel zero compulsion to buy property until the conditions are really <i>fully</i> satisfactory. I am aware that any rent I pay is "gone", while the mortgage ultimately pays into a principal, but so far the overall equation taking everything into account (also including those aspects without a directly gaugeable monetary value that the article mentions) did not tip over towards owning yet.
> Here are the dragons: ... Buying a house or an apartment will disproportionately affect other areas of your life<p>I agree with the general caution about buying a property and the baggage it comes with. Unfortunately with kids there be dragons in renting as well: having to move when getting priced out.
Or as I have learnt the haaaard way - amateurs win at [insert sport] tennis by not making unforced errors i.e. just return the ball and make sure your serve is not out... most of the time and you are good. Pros win by hitting aces and shots.<p>At most games in life we are amateurs - buying cars, buying/renting houses, getting jobs since we don't do those things frequently enough to get good at them and learn all the tricks and traps. We can try to get a <i>great</i> deal on a car but that is near impossible - try and avoid the usual traps and you are doing good enough.<p>Buying "too much" house is one of those traps. Buying a house that needs too much work is another. Buying a house with an expensive amenity (e.g. swimming pool or too big of a garage or lawn) is another.
I feel like I agree with this in principle but the examples almost feel backwards to me. The bullet points under buying a house seems to be specifically about: 1) Overstretching your budget to buy bigger houses than you can afford, 2) Buying somewhere very remote where there are no job opportunities if you don't work remote, 3) Leisure options and friends are far away. None of these points are about <i>buying a house</i> itself as a decision (vs, renting).<p>Depending on your timing and location, renting is way more of a shoot-yourself-in-the-foot decision than buying a house. I graduated from college in mid-2000s and after a few years finally saved up to buy a house in early 2010s. Plenty of my peers saw no real need to this and continued renting through the decade of 2010-2020 while seeing home prices rise to unaffordable levels. I acknowledge that I got lucky in my timing and location (bay area), but it's hard to imagine a scenario where buying doesn't make sense when you can afford to. If nothing else, a (fixed rate) mortgage at least guarantees your monthly housing payment won't increase, vs rent. The <i>decision</i> to rent (as in, not being forced to rent because you cannot afford to buy) seems way more footgun-ish.<p>On the jobs section, the way most people choose jobs is insane, not by choice but more because it really is that hard and luck-based choosing a job. Over my career, I got to the "choose a random company whose recruiter just happened to reach out" point and landed a job, twice, and these both happen to be jobs I loved and stayed for a long time. Notably, another time, I moved to a company because I had a lot of friends working there so I knew I'd enjoy the people there, it didn't work out after a year and a half for other reasons than the people. The point of this all is, it's just really difficult to know what really matters at a job and company, so it's really hard to call this a footgun decision.
Buying a house is, by far and away, the best thing I have ever done for my personal happiness and wellbeing. Have I constrained myself financially? Yes, sure. But every day I work in my garden, work in projects in my garage, take on home improvement projects etc. Despite the constraints, I have never felt more free. I would never, EVER go back to renting. Ever.
I find some people really romanticize renting. It varies by country I guess. It sucks in the UK/Ireland. Here are some downsides to renting off the top of my head:<p>- Getting kicked out when the landlord wants to sell or "move in their family"<p>- No pets<p>- No decorating (painting walls etc)<p>- Landlord taking up to 12 months to repair basic things, if at all ("well, you accepted the property when X was broken/in Y condition")<p>- Landlords trying to scam you out of deposits<p>- Poorly maintained properties<p>- Up to 25% annual increases in rent<p>- Moderate to extreme difficulty actually finding somewhere<p>- Mold. It's incredible how many rentals have mold problems (in my experience)<p>- Moving costs if you are forced to move frequently
I get the general attitude/perspective and I'm largely in agreement.<p>I'll nit-pick on his point of buying experiences vs things.<p>Though I agree that instagrammable experiences don't have much meaningful value, I do value a lot experiences where I paid not an insignificant amount of money.<p>I'm assuming the author meant some balance but called something out based on his impression of an audience (maybe some projection on his part). But "paid experiences" can meaningfully lead to personal growth, perspective of other countries/peoples, deepening friendships.<p>That being said - you should have good long term finances to even make all that viable.
Sounds to me like author has had some bad experiences and is trying to generalize them. But I would have been curious to read about those things directly that inspired the author to write this, instead of the indirect points. It all seems reasonable stuff that most of us do when picking a place to live, work, etc. Of course buying a house will pin you to the surrounding area. And I don't know if anybody does that without at least examining the house and area in person at least once, instead of just going by photos. Anyway.
The best way to get ahead is to start budgeting properly. Get an app like YNAB and get to the point where you can go for a few months without a job. Then, when a company decides to go dark-side, you can afford to leave and spend some time looking elsewhere. The stress reduction is insane. All of a sudden, losing your job isn't the end of the world.<p>The reason employers have so much leverage is because their workers are living paycheck to paycheck. If workers could just leave at any time for months on end then they would be in a much better situation to negotiate for better pay.