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by lindenksv1
3599 days ago
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Yes, I can rent. I can rent until I die. But how bizarre is it that you are telling me and everyone else who isn't wealth enough to have bought a house yet that we "insist" on buying and we should be happy to rent forever when we spent decades telling the baby boomers the exact opposite? As a country, we recognize the wealth building aspect of home ownership. We recognize the stability it gives people who don't have to worry about rent increases and who don't have to worry about pulling their kids out of their school. We see the value of people leaving their kids with homes after they die, not dusty rent checks. We recognize the value of people putting down roots in their community and investing in it. We gave the baby boomers the mortgage interest rate deduction, Prop 13, and the GI bill and numerous other programs to make sure that everyone in the middle class could have a home to call their own. Now you're saying that it was fine for the American dream for boomers to involve home ownership but if a Millennial wants the same benefits then they're "entitled" and "insisting"? The absurd cost of housing in this country and the declining rates of homeownership are directly tied to the massive divergence we're seeing between rich and poor in this country and the shrinking middle class. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/03/19/meet-... |
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Anyway, with regards to home ownership: I'm personally of the belief that home ownership has been massively oversold as a benefit. I've been in the Bay Area for 25 years, from undergrad to staff engineer at an internet firm. Over the various dot-booms and dot-busts, I saw people moving further from the Bay Area and taking on insane commutes due to the desire to own homes. For example, many Stanford employees purchased in Tracy(!), then experienced massive financial failures when that area depreciated.
I'd like to see Prop 13 die in a fire. Unlikely to ever happen.
So, as you say, you're moving out of Palo Alto because the costs to buy there are too high. However, Santa Cruz isn't particularly cheap nor is it significantly cheaper than my own area, San Mateo, which has a 20 minute commute to Palo Alto.
If you had just said, "$90K/year in an area 30 minute commute to PA", I wouldn't have complained at all. The problem here is insisting on living directly in PA weakens the argument (it's specious) because there is no specific reason for a person to have to live in PA. There are more affordable communities around within 30 minutes commute. I feel like you're insisting that people who support a community must live (and own) in that city. I don't think that's a rational requiment.
Again, none of my argument is based on the systemic issues in the Bay Area (or anywhere with a booming economy and a large number of well-capitalized buyers), which I freely admit is a problem.