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Why You Should Never Buy a Home Again

68 点作者 jaltucher大约 14 年前

27 条评论

gr366大约 14 年前
The title on the post itself (and the slug in the URL) is "Why <i>I</i> Am Never Going to Own a Home Again" (emphasis mine). In the article, the author states "there are many reasons to not buy a home," and the reasons are from his perspective, which presumably is what his friends are asking for.<p>However, the title here on HN makes it sound like the author is suggesting nobody ever buy a home again — probably not his intent. Sure, there are numerous reasons for not buying a home just as there are numerous reasons <i>for</i> buying a home — it depends on your situation.<p>I can personally relate to some of the author's arguments. Having rented out the house I bought 5 years ago while I'm living abroad, I'm essentially paying a 2nd rent to make up the difference between what I'm getting from my renter and the sum of my mortgage, taxes and homeowner's insurance.
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frankus大约 14 年前
The man's got a point. And I say that as a homeowner of nine years.<p>The first point I would make is that unless you're independently wealthy, you're either going to be renting housing or renting money. All else equal, thirty years later you'll own some money or you'll own some property, respectively. The trick is in the "all else equal" part, because given rent versus price ratios, interest rates, and inflation expectations one or the other may be a far better deal.<p>Secondly, in a lot of desirable areas renting an equivalent property is far cheaper than buying. A lot of that has to do with the fact that rentals aren't usually quite as nice in terms of location, condition, and accoutrements as owner occupied places, but the effect often remains after correcting for this.<p>Good reasons to own your house? If you have pets, finding a rental can be really hard. If you enjoy renovating and general handypersonship maintenance might be a feature as well as a bug. Finally, if market conditions make it a no-brainer.<p>Tl;dr don't pay more in mortgage than you'd be comfortable paying in rent, and don't feel like you need to own a place to be a grownup.
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pg大约 14 年前
"Lets spell out very clearly why the myth of homeownership became religion in the United States. Its because corporations didn’t want their employees to have many job choices. So they encouraged them to own homes."<p>If that was their plan (which I doubt), it wasn't very effective. Americans move much more frequently than people in most other countries.
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justinph大约 14 年前
Life is not all about money!<p>Buy a house because you want someplace to be your own, that you can customize, and really be part of a neighborhood, and not worry about asking a landlord for permission.<p>I bought a house because all the apartments I looked at for the price were dumps, and in a house at least I had incentive to fix the stuff that made it a dump.
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mikebo大约 14 年前
Decide for yourself: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/business/buy-rent-calculator.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/business/buy-rent-calcula...</a>
petercooper大约 14 年前
<i>There must be some ancient evolutionary tic that makes us want to tear down walls or put nails in them or paint them.</i><p>And? Most people decorate their homes, put up art, paint, or otherwise like to decorate and furnish their homes. It's what makes it feel like a <i>home</i> rather than a box you sleep in each night for, and I'm sticking my neck out here with a guess, a plurality of humankind.
bdlang大约 14 年前
&#62;<i>Starting March, 2009 I was renting an apartment directly across the street from the New York Stock Exchange. It was fun. I’d look out the window and see Wall Street. How exciting! Before that I lived in The Chelsea Hotel with Chubb Rock. Last year we decided to relax and move a little north. Now I look out the window and see the Hudson River. And its quiet and I can walk along the river in the morning with no noise.</i><p>I can't imagine that was cheap. Most of the article is inflected with desire to retain hoards of cash and sleep on top of a pile with many beautiful women (well, that's the undertone). Yet he's blowing what must be a huge wad on an apartment in NYC in an upscale area.
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dctoedt大约 14 年前
One big macro-scale drawback to home ownership is that it impedes labor mobility: It anchors homeowners to a particular city and makes it harder for them to consider moving elsewhere to find employment. A few months ago I heard economists on <i>Marketplace</i> saying this was a significant national policy problem.
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joshuaheard大约 14 年前
I could easily refute all the points in that article if I had the time. I'll suffice to give this example:<p>"A" buys a $100,000 house, "B" rents a $100,000 house. Both pay about $1,500 per month. At the end of 15 years, "A" owns an asset worth $100,000, "B" owns nothing. You decide.
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diego大约 14 年前
Why is the title of the submission different from the article's? "Why You Should Never Buy a Home Again" sounds trollish. It's does not apply to a large number of people for whom buying a home is indeed a good idea. Please edit the submission title to match your current title:<p>"Why I Am Never Going to Own a Home Again"
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laujen大约 14 年前
This is a beautiful piece of link bait. His advice might make sense if you live in New York, but it doesn't work at all in most places in the country. If you live in the suburbs you can't find places to rent. If you have kids and care about where they go to school, you don't want to follow this advice. If you live in a city like Cleveland or Detroit or a hundred other Midwest towns where the price of a house can approach $50k, it may not be worth it either.
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dpcan大约 14 年前
Yeah, I used to have a similar mindset before starting my (big) family. I can understand what he's saying (though very arrogantly) but I hope he's open to changing his mind someday, just in case.<p>He mentioned he likes having a hassle free life. Once you have a lot of kids, not only do you have your own hassles, you get to be a part of everyone's hassles and there's no such thing as a hassle free life.<p>All I'm saying is, never lock yourself into any mindset as circumstances can change.
ulrich大约 14 年前
This is a very biased view and it might become invalid in different market conditions. Just think of a great inflation or any market collapse. If you own a house, you can still live in there. But you can only burn your cash for heating.<p>As long as our financial system works, cash is of course the best form of an asset.
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nachteilig大约 14 年前
Someone has to say it: this site is full of bad writing and logical fallacies. Can we please stop linking to it?
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epall大约 14 年前
I just had the opportunity to sell a large 30-year fixed-rate bond with massive leverage into an overheated bond market with damn near a guarantee of serious inflation over the next 30 years. Thank you, Bank of America!
mkramlich大约 14 年前
A simpler point I didn't see emphasized is that even when you "own" a home you do not own it. You're renting it from the government, home owners association and utility companies. Disagree? Stop making payments to those three entities and we'll see how long it takes for men with guns to come and evict or arrest you. Owning is renting. Free your mind.
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rbranson大约 14 年前
Housing is not an investment, it's an expense.<p>To compare another investment, if you were to save $200/mo away into an investment account bearing 9.0% (like an S&#38;P index fund), this would amount to $368,894 after 30 years. The whole time these funds are liquid and accessible to you, not subject to foreclosure, nor is this a required payment. $400/mo is $737,789.
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mrschwabe大约 14 年前
I'll buy a home with cash. Never with debt. Mortgages are pointless. I'd rather pay my rent to a landlord than a bank.
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jeffepp大约 14 年前
There are several advantages of home ownership that most people do not take advantage of.<p>A tax free gain for the sale of a primary residence (2 years + ownership) is one in particular. I am on my 2nd 'primary residence' in 3 years.
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arepb大约 14 年前
(adds on to headline)..."if you have a difficult time reading market conditions, don't understand your financial situation and feel comfortable moving your belongings from house to house every few years."
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ajays大约 14 年前
.... and he ends with this sentence:<p><pre><code> By the way, this is going to sound like a contradiction: but I think housing is a great investment right now. </code></pre> Go figure.
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meowzero大约 14 年前
I think his post is a bit extreme. It depends on a lot of factors on whether to buy a house or not. I think most of his reasons aren't really valid for not owning a home.<p>I'll make some comments on his financial arguments:<p>A) If you pay off your home fast, you won't have anymore mortgage payments. And you actually own something that you might be able to sell later, getting some money back. If you rent, you won't see that money ever again. So technically your cash is good as gone if you rent. If you own, you can get something back at least.<p>This depends on the house you buy and the market. For example, I rented a lot until I found a good deal on a house. Now I pay less on my mortgage than on my apartment I rented.<p>The rent may increase every year too. At every place I stayed, they always raised the rent every year. At least with the home, you don't have to worry about that since you have the same mortgage payment every month.<p>B) Usually the seller pays the closing costs, especially at the current market. If not, negotiate so the seller pays. You don't usually have to worry about this if you're buying a home.<p>C) He's right on this one. The comfort of calling the maintenance person at my apt was one of the benefits over owning.<p>D) This is simliar to A). It depends on the market and the home you get. For me, the taxes + mortgage turned out to be simliar to what I paid in rent. Plus I now get a huge refund because of my deductions. So I paid around the same amount as my rent, and I got a bigger refund on my taxes.<p>E) I agree with the author. This is probably one of the disadvantages of owning a house.<p>F) I don't consider my home an investment. It's a place I bought to live in. I don't expect to make a profit from it. I have my stocks and mutual funds that I consider to be investments.<p>Now my comments on his personal reasons on not owning a home:<p>A) I agree with the author. This is same as E) above. I don't know why he put it twice.<p>B) I don't see how this is a reason not to own a home. The benefits of owning a home is that you can do whatever you want with it without worrying about the landlord looking over your shoulder.<p>C) I don't understand this argument as a reason for not buying a home.<p>D-F). Not everyone is same. Some people's hobbies are gardening and maintaining the home. They actually enjoy doing it. Some people like the sense of stability. But if you're like the author and like to change things up a lot and be mobile, a house is probably not good for you.<p>G) I got stressed when I rented because the landlord needed to raise the rent every year. Then I had to go through the stress of negotiating the rent increase. If I wasn't successful, I had the stress of budgeting for the higher rent or had the stress of packing all my junk up, finding a new place, and moving. So renting isn't always stress free.<p>H) This is true. But if you plan wisely, you should still have a lot of cash available for emergencies, even after buying your home.
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mark_l_watson大约 14 年前
In general, I think that this is not good advice.<p>It is not a bad idea to buy a modest size home that meets your family's needs for a reasonable price.<p>As you get older and have hopefully had a good career, try to own at least two modest homes and become a landlord.<p>There is a good chance that we will see a lot of inflation in the next 10 years or so. If this happens, owning rental property may help to protect your assets.
16s大约 14 年前
Places I rented over the years either had music blaring next door or loud parties periodically or I could hear other couples having sex, cockroaches from neighbors, etc. (this was in the <i>nicer</i> areas).<p>I've had my fill of all that. Owning a home is just as cheap as renting one in my area. The peace and quiet I have is priceless.
aashpak1大约 14 年前
He also says &#62;&#62;&#62; housing is a great investment right now. I think housing prices have gone down far enough and I can list the reasons why housing as an abstract investment concept is going to go higher from here.
aneth大约 14 年前
How can he make such sweeping statements about the financial implications of buying a home without actually making calculations based on real numbers? Depending on real estate to rent ratios, the calculation varies dramatically.
tedjdziuba大约 14 年前
Yeah, that's it. Lease everything, don't own any assets. Let me know how that works out for you.
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