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by JumpCrisscross 748 days ago
> Most people at the edge of buying a house aren’t going to invest if they decide to rent instead

Sure. In the same way self insuring is generally a mistake, even if you're wealthy, because most of us don't have the discipline to hold that liquidity hostage continuously. The forced-saving benefit of homeownership is real. I simply ponder whether it (and the increased civic engagement ownership brings) can be replicated some other way.

1 comments

That’s an interesting question, it would be great if there were good alternatives.

So FWIW after sleeping and thinking about it, I might be coming around to what you were saying, that buying at high prices and high interest might not be a great financial decision right now. My today thinking is that this whole discussion was perhaps not really about buying vs renting, it was mostly about financing and the often obscured total cost of a loan. I guess if we were talking about paying cash for a house, the calculus vs renting is completely different. I’ve been lucky with my houses and I shouldn’t assume everyone will be as lucky. I did realize a couple of funny ways to frame things. Buying a house might let you leverage your down payment, but a loan is also bank leverage against you, since you will eventually pay back 2x-3x the loan amount. Or another way of putting it is that when I buy a house with a loan, I’m renting the money to buy the house. :P