[claydavisss]

Who are these people who intentionally seek a lower rent over a higher mortgage so as to invest in stocks? I've yet to meet one. Renters are just as likely to give in to vanity purchases, dumb spending habits etc...

And why are stocks such an awesome alternative? A stock can go to zero...even foreclosed homes have some value.

Stocks are optional - shelter isn't. Since you must commit some of your earnings to shelter, it makes sense over the long run to fix the costs and find a way to profit.

On a subjective level, home owners have better finances, more say in guiding their communities, and many other advantages.

Of course we can turn your argument back...why does society make so many accommodations for people who just buy and sell pieces of paper?

[wh0knows]

Take a look at the FIRE community, or anybody who is interested in a self-funded retirement.

Most people who are the ones renting and investing large amount are not buying single stocks, they are buying broad index funds that encompass the entire market and are rebalanced to keep an even representation.

These broad index funds going to zero is not a very likely scenario outside of total anarchy. It would mean all publicly traded companies becoming worthless and you would be much more worried about acquiring water, shelter, food, and protecting yourself from looters than anything else (in this scenario I would imagine the piece of paper saying your house is yours would not be worth very much either).

Now think of the much more likely scenario of a local real-estate market collapsing, uninsured natural disaster destroying your house, or climate change making your area unliveable, and you can see which proposition is really the riskier one.

If you don't sell your house you don't profit you only pay more in property taxes.

The thing is it doesn't, that's the point. If I want to rent to keep flexibility and invest my money in stocks in order to retire I am at a decided disadvantage than somebody who buys a house and has it appreciate to double its initial value. In the vast majority of countries this appreciation is free from capital gains tax, or the house's value is not taken into account in the wealth tax. So why is the house owner rewarded for saving and putting money in a mortgage and the renter penalised by capital gains/wealth taxes?

[zimablue]

What you're saying, which is a good point, when you say that shelter isn't optional, you can phrase that more precisely as "owning property is a hedge against variable property prices". It's true but there are other ways to hedge this, eg. Long term rental contracts, limited rent controls or owning specific derivatives all reduce this risk. There are societies that run like that, eg. Germany.

Some stocks can go to zero, some are very unlikely to and most portfolios have things that are very unlikely to flatline like govt bonds. Well i don't mortgage although i could, and I do save so hello you've met your first. The idea that we need a bank threatening to throw us out of our houses to enforce responsible saving is infantile and grotesque.

General criticism of the finance sector is a bit too off topic for me to engage with.

[_ea1k]

"owning property is a hedge against variable property prices"

One of the best pieces of financial advice that I've ever heard centers on this. "The purpose of owning a house is to fix the cost of housing." Its brilliant in its simplicity and I had never thought about it until hearing it a few dozen times. :)

Unfortunately, it is also a vastly different mindset from many home buyers (and, for various reasons, sellers).

[dionidium]

> even foreclosed homes have some value.

Homes can go to zero. Homes can go to below zero, which is why there are land banks all across the Rust Belt with thousands of properties they have trouble giving away.

> On a subjective level, home owners have better finances, more say in guiding their communities, and many other advantages.

Of course, because we live in a society in which nearly everyone is convinced that it's better to own a house, so anybody with enough resources to own a house chooses to own a house. And because most of those folks have an even dimmer view of apartment-dwellers than you've displayed here, they use zoning to literally separate themselves from those lower classes, to fairly predictable outcomes.

[AnimalMuppet]

> Homes can go to zero. Homes can go to below zero, which is why there are land banks all across the Rust Belt with thousands of properties they have trouble giving away.

Could you give some reference(s) on this? I'd love to see a bank that was trying to give away property, and to find out why they couldn't (and to see if I could find a way where the property would have positive value to me).

[dionidium]

The Land Reutilization Authority in St. Louis holds about 12,000 unwanted properties:

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/lra-owns-the-st-lo...

The LRA usually ends up with these properties when they fail to receive any bids at the regular tax auctions. Fewer are falling into their hands, recently, because the hot housing market is driving folks to look at things they previously wouldn't have, but properties still routinely go unwanted:

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/fewer-...

St. Louis is the market I'm most familiar with, but similar land banks exist in cities all across the country.

[thescriptkiddie]

> A stock can go to zero...even foreclosed homes have some value.

It's possible for a foreclosed home to have negative value, because the unpaid property tax bill is more than the value of the property. On the other hand, a total stock market index fund like VTSAX can only go to zero it something catastrophic happened.