this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2024
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A Boring Dystopia
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I am in my late 30s and was only just able to buy this month. It's the cheapest place I could find in my city, and the mortgage repayment will clean me and my SO out to the point where we can't afford to run a car. We're both in full time employment with an MSc.
Welcome to the Hamsterrad
Why not just find a nice apartment? I'm not trying to be a jerk here or anything, but if owning a home puts you out that much, why not just keep renting?
*Oh sick, down voted for adding discussion, awesome. This place really is better than reddit!!
It's more expensive and less stable. So fuck that.
Edit: there are no nice rentals here. Tourism is booming, and anyone with half a brain puts their house on Airbnb. What's left is small and barely habitable for the same price as a mortgage.
Because retiring when you don't own a home is difficult. Not only is rent a lot more than property taxes, but it tends to go up unpredictably.
So for most people, buying a home of some kind is a given. Doing so sooner means saving more money, both because rent is generally more than property tax and because loan payments build equity, which is still fundamentally yours.
A lot of people feel rent is throwing away money. However, interest on a loan will cost a lot too so it’s not super straight forward
It honestly is pretty straightforward, from my perspective. With a fixed-rate mortgage, yes, there's front loading of interest but the down payment and the portion of payments that goes into the principal is yours. If the you sell, that portion never goes away, as long as the value at least maintains. And, the payments do not change. You can even take further loans out of it, once you pay in enough (ex - replace a garage door).
When renting, none of the payment is yours once it leaves your hands. You're also at the mercy of the landlord's rules and whims when it comes to rent increases. End up disabled or retired on a fixed income? You're boned the moment that the landlord decides that they can make more than you can afford to pay. Basically means that you'll never be able to enjoy your later years to their fullest.
And that's purely financial. Not even getting into the messed up limitations on one's agency. It's really messed up that the ability to buy a home has been stolen from so many of us.
Nothing has given me more ire towards renting than the removal of agency and lack of options. I need permission to do my laundry? I have to request someone fill a card value and the minimum is $15!? Oh and a single load of laundry is $5??
Ooor I could drive 15 minutes away and sit in the closest laundromat for 2 hrs for $6 (plus gas, time, etc.)
This sounds highly specific and not indicative of most people's renting experience lol I've never heard of anything like that in my life. Ive been renting since 08
Having to use a paycard for laundry because they don't allow in unit laundry?
I have yet to live in an apartment that allows me to have my own washer and dryer and I've been renting over 10 years myself in multiple cities
Pay my own mortgage or someone else's? Seems pretty straightforward to me.
Are you in Europe? If I can ask.
Yeah, Norway. House prices are not exclusively an American problem. Also the price of everything is going up especially food. If all goes according to plan I should be able to pay off the apartment shortly before I die.