Probably the majority at what they think the house should cost. Probably very few at what the monthly payment for a market rate mortgage + downpayment actually costs, based on the recent run-up in home values and interest rates over the past 3-4 years.
E.g. would you prefer to rent the same house at $2000 month, or own at $4000/mo? It might not be this bad in Atlanta but in many areas the rent/buy ratio is that bad now.
Yeah. I live in an old house on a little bit of property. It's paid-off but it's still probably something close to $2K/month between property taxes, insurance, utilities/oil, and more or less steady state maintenance--some of which could probably be deferred but...
It's totally worth the exercise (it's not terribly hard) to "rent to yourself" on paper, just to get a feel for everything involved.
And like you see, it is much more than you'd expect at first, because so many things only "pop up" every 10/20/30 years. A $20k roof replacement done every 30 years is $60 a month or so, and how many of those kind of things are hiding in a house? Hint: the depreciation tables from the IRS are not a gift ...
I used to (half-)joke that had I known how much work and money my house was going to be, I'd probably just have gone with a newer condo.
I agree with the points upthread that a lot of people like the idea of home ownership but don't appreciate all the ongoing costs--including the amortized costs of unexpected things. (I just paid $1K to get a big tree that came down dealt with which fortunately didn't cause any actual damage.
>88% of Americans would rather own a home than rent. Specifically, 76% of renters would rather own a home, but only 2% of homeowners would rather rent.
That’s a completely dumb statistic since it doesn’t talk about the cost. Of course someone would rather have something rather than nothing, if the something cost nothing. In reality, if the “something” cost $1 Million and only saved you $2500/mo, is it actually preferred?
E.g. would you prefer to rent the same house at $2000 month, or own at $4000/mo? It might not be this bad in Atlanta but in many areas the rent/buy ratio is that bad now.