[ilammy]

> I'm not interested in placing bets on my salary

That's exactly what you already do if you're renting: you're betting that you will be able to work and earn enough salary to afford the rent, with your adjusted expenses. That's "pfft easy" when you're in 20's, easy in your 30's, okay in your 40's (kids need money, yo), doable in your 50's, oh shit when you're 52 because surprise! economic downturn / medical emergency / anything else that might happen. And now you don't have a place to live in and spending your retirement money to rent one, or take a dip in your quality of life.

If you're not paying for your mortgage, you're likely paying for one of your landlord.

[jjav]

> And now you don't have a place to live in and spending your retirement money to rent one, or take a dip in your quality of life.

As you say, keeping up with rent is easy (not necessarily, but for those in professional careers) early in life, but as your income plateaus later in your career it starts to become harder to keep up with relentless rent increases.

But then it's in retirement that a lifetime of renting really hurts. Suddenly you have no income anymore other than whatever small retirement benefits if any, but rents keep going up.

[ac29]

> But then it's in retirement that a lifetime of renting really hurts.

That assumes that the mortgage (+tax, +maintenance, +etc) is the same cost or less than renting is. That almost certainly isnt the case at first - at least in the area I live, I see houses renting for far less than just the interest on the mortgage would be (if purchased today, presumably the owners bought at lower prices and/or lower interest rates).

[jjav]

> That almost certainly isnt the case at first

Agreed, at first the monthly cost of ownership is likely higher than rent. But my quoted comment was about retirement age, which is at the tail end, not at first.

It doesn't take long for rent to catch up and from there on rent will forever go up while the mortgage will either stay fixed or only go down via refinances. Even if refinancing doesn't work (in a rising rate market like right now) the mortgage is effectively going down via inflation while rents keep up with inflation.

In my case the first year of ownership was fairly painful as the cost was much higher than previous rent (although for a nicer place). By the second year was able to refinance so it wasn't bad anymore. By the third year, with rents rising, my mortgage was already about par with local rents.

Ever since then, rents have gone up massively (about 4x-5x) and my mortgage has only gone down (today about 30% of the inital monthly payment in absolute dollars, or effectively only about 15% considering inflation).

Most importantly, it will be paid off before I retire so once I'm on a limited fixed income that's one monthly cost I won't have to worry about. Having seen some forever-renter extended family reach retirement age with rising rents, it's a sad and painful situation.

My advice to anyone is that unless you hate your future self, buy a house in your 30s if at all possible.

[edmundsauto]

Rent rises, your mortgage doesn't. I have locked in $3500/month current cost to have a home, which is about what rent would be (once you account for gains from investing the down payment to offset the rent).

Since 1980, in the US, rents have increased 9% per year. In 20 years, the rent will be 2-4x, whereas my mortgage will remain the same (modulo a lowered interest deduction).

Even if it's about as financially efficient (which I doubt), it's a very powerful feeling to have locked down a fixed cost of housing for as long as I want to live in California.