[chrsw]

Hiring contractors to work on your house is also high cost, in money and stress.

You commonly end up paying someone a lot of money who then turns around and gets underpaid subcontractors, of dubious employment eligibility status, to do the actual work.

If you’re going through the trouble of owning a home, it makes sense to do as much work yourself as you can.

[mrguyorama]

Your rent will go up 5% a year, every year, compounding to infinity.

That pays for a lot of contractor time.

Even if you have to take a line of credit against your house above your current loan amount, your equity is based on it's current value, and that's still a static price in the end.

That rent increases every single year, percentage based so it compounds, is asinine and literally only serves to make some holding company's line go up infinitely.

As long as the US has 30 year fixed rate loans, it will never be better to rent.

[chrsw]

My rent did not go up this year, actually. And it did not go up one year during COVID either.

Plus, as a renter, I took the option of renting in a cheaper (unattractive) building with no amenities in an otherwise expensive neighborhood in a very expensive city, to be close to work.

If I wanted to buy a condo in the same neighborhood as I live in now, roughly the same layout, I’m looking at a monthly mortgage payment plus condo fees at least 75% more than my _total_ cost to rent where I am now, including utilities.

Is owning a home the financially responsible thing to do, generally? Yes. But owning a home is more money and more work than most people wondering about the decision realize, even if in the end you come out on top when you look at your bottom line.

[exe34]

> My rent did not go up this year, actually. And it did not go up one year during COVID either.

And yet properties around you will have gone up by some average amount. When your landlord does raise your rent (or when you move out, as the pro-landlords keep telling us people love to do), the rent you will pay at the new place will have kept pace with the average raise.

[angmarsbane]

I mean it just compounds until you die. At some point you decide that you're comfortable with whatever financial number you're going to end life with and instead of taking steps to further maximize it you just enjoy your life, and for some people that means renting an apartment on the beach.

[exe34]

That's easy if you know when you're planning to die. If you're stuck renting beyond that plan, good luck. The stress and ensuing homelessness might bring you back on schedule.