[danjayh]

People should also understand that a 'good investment' and a 'wealth building tool' are not necessarily the same thing. Consider a world in which housing only keeps up with inflation, and few people ever raid their home equity to buy stuff (the way it was traditionally). The house then truly is a good wealth-building tool - a savings account that most people never touch, that pays interest in the form of rent savings, and that can be liquidated in old age to use the funds. This view of things is not at odds with affordable housing, and I think is more in line with the traditional view of housing as a wealth building tool. Traditionally people didn't expect to strike it rich by buying a house.

[bunderbunder]

That view does have some assumptions baked in, though.

For example, that term, "rent savings," is an assumption in and of itself. In the real estate market I live in, a house can easily offer negative rent savings. Based on the figures I've seen in my area, I'd estimate that the point at which my hypothetical lifetime expenditure on owning a house drops below my hypothetical lifetime expenditure on renting would come a decade or so after the point at which I can expect to die.

That said, I don't want to imply that buying a house is a bad idea, even in my market. Lately I've been getting more interested in doing it, myself. But, at least to me, this is right in line with how the clothing and food that I buy have also changed over the past couple decades: The more money I have, the more I can afford to spend it on having nice things.

[titanomachy]

"I'd estimate that the point at which my hypothetical lifetime expenditure on owning a house drops below my hypothetical lifetime expenditure on renting would come a decade or so after the point at which I can expect to die."

Can you share some of the numbers you used to get to that conclusion? I've done similar estimates in my (high cost-of-living) city, and even with pretty conservative estimates of property value growth the payoff is much sooner. Yes, the mortgage payments are more than rent for a comparable home, but the interest (plus estimated taxes, maintenance, etc) is somewhat less than rent.

I'd guess one of the following is true:

* you are assuming stock market returns will significantly outstrip growth in your housing market, even considering leverage

* you don't have access to tax breaks on mortgage payments

* you are much older than 30

* you live in an area where home prices are wildly inflated beyond what rents would predict

[bunderbunder]

I don't have my notes or the exact numbers anymore. It sounds like we might have been doing a very different calculation. For me, I didn't consider property value growth at all. That all just sort of went into a bucket labeled, "Equity I have invested in some asset; regardless of whether it went into a house or into T-bills or ICOs, for my purposes none of it counts as money I spent."

From there I just looked at the money I would never see again - interest, taxes, maintenance, fees, assessments (if a condo), etc.

[test6554]

Are you considering the value of the equity in the home?