[mschuster91]

> purely financially, owning is not better than renting; rent is not wasted money, at least not more than the fingerquotes rent you spend when you live in your own place.

Only if you're having no kids which you plan to leave some wealth to inherit. Owning a home is the way for the lower/ middle class to build up trans-generational wealth. Let's just take the following example:

1. I buy a home today and pay it off in 30 years (standard schedule).

2. I get a kid in three years.

3. The kid is ~30 when I become a pensioner and move off to Croatia to smoke pot all day and night... meaning the kid can either move with his family into my fully paid off home, rent it out or sell it off at 4-5x the "original" value. Either way, my kid can keep a vast proportion of his paycheck and either save it up or investing it, thus creating wealth.

If I will spend the rest of my time renting, however, I will leave nothing for my kid to inherit and use as leverage to build their own wealth.

[tathougies]

I mean if you rent you could leave your kid actual cash or investments which are higher returning than houses. Then they can buy three houses

[mschuster91]

Which cash should I leave them when all I make is going to rent?! For people who are not in the US tech/finance bubble, there is no way to accumulate any money other than paying a mortgage on a home. Hell even the US tech bros have difficulties finding an affordable price to live, if one goes by common Reddit/HN sentiments.

[spoonie]

But you had to have saved up money in the first place in order to make a downpayment on the mortgage. If your rent is so expensive that you can’t save any money then you aren’t going to be able to get a mortgage anyway. And if you can save money for a downpayment then you have to compare the opportunity cost of investing those savings versus using them to buy a house.

[mschuster91]

> But you had to have saved up money in the first place in order to make a downpayment on the mortgage

Now you understand why my generation is so truly fucked.

>And if you can save money for a downpayment then you have to compare the opportunity cost of investing those savings versus using them to buy a house.

The house will always win if you are in any metropolitan area. In 20 years property prices in Munich, for example, have tripled or quadrupled, if not more. If you're not in a metro area you don't have the rent problem anyway.

[tathougies]

> Now you understand why my generation is so truly fucked.

No. I find it incredibly difficult to understand why my generation seems to be so truly 'fucked'. Especially, the type of people who are on HN should be able to save money and make a down payment.

[statusquoantefa]

you are exactly right, but when people have bad ideas lodged in their heads, it's difficult to dislodge them.