Tonya Harding would be great. They could do all sorts of ridiculous scenes using ice skates as weapons.
How about a terrible mid 00s style low budget scfy channel movie? Barbie vs Dinosaurs. Harley Quinn vs Dinosaurs would work too. It is such a terrible idea it's hilarious IMO.
Don't give them ideas!
It is best to just put in the order online. Then you can park, walk in, grab it, walk out and be moving before they serve a single car.
NIMBY isn't even a good financial position. Think about it. Say your area is rezoned for mixed use and you start getting apartments and condos on top of store fronts. Land value will skyrocket and all likelihood, you will come out ahead. Ever wonder why Manhattan and DC real estate is so expensive?
ETA: taxes here are annual. So you are paying about 1-2 months rent per year in taxes. Another in insurance. Add in 1k for a real estate lawyer to process the transaction. Mortgages have up front fees that can cost a few months rent. It takes a while to recoup all those costs. Buying an average home will cost upwards of 5-10k for all of the upfront expenses. They also tend to come with an abomination known as an HSA that eat 1-5k per year. I pay around 7k per year in taxes, insurance, and HOA costs. If you don't have a large enough down payment, add PMI. You can also shell out thousands up front for points that reduce interest rates.
The fact that more and more people don't even have the option
I agree with you here. A healthy housing markets should have a variety of housing available at reasonable costs. For rent and sale. In the US, the causes of that are euclidean zoning, NIMBYism, and under regulated capitalism.
I don't know the US market"
That explains a lot of the disconnect. Buying with minimal risk isn't feasible in a lot of places in the US.
In the US, it isn't uncommon for smaller cities to be economically dependent on one particular thing, like a base, university, factory, agriculture, mine, etc. West Virginia is a great example. Their economy is pretty dependent on coal. This is why their democratic senator tends to vote with Republicans on matters that would interfere with coal mining. If the next federal election is a massive slide towards Democrats, the WV economy will be devastated unless they come up with a way to replace coal mining. The real estate market would absolutely tank. Anyone that bought in the previous 5 years would regret it.
A place being devastated economically due to a closure happens. The US is large, so there might not be any other major economic source for 75+km. Even if there are, the distance will in all likelihood cause a large decline in real estate prices.
A house in any particular areas value depends on decisions by the federal government, state government, local government, a school board (school districts effect real estate prices here), and sometimes a corporation. Any one of those entities could (and has) turn a 400k house into a < 300k house in very short order. It happened almost nationwide here in 2008 due to the removal of financial market regulations.
Maybe where you live these kinds of risks aren't common, in that case buying is going to make more sense in more cases. In the US, buying in an area without economic diversity is a lot more risky than a lot of people realize.
Another issue in the US is housing types. A lot of areas have apartments for rent or 3+ BR SFH to buy. A single person would have a massive opportunity cost and take on unnecessary HVAC costs, etc buying in these areas. Renting a 1BR or studio would be a much lower monthly cost. Renting and investing the difference would be a better move in most cases.
Buying should generally be a better option when someone plans to stay in an area for while. I won't say always though. Some parts of the US I would never buy real estate.
Am I starting to make more sense?
Nobody ever went underwater on a house they can't sell renting.
Things aren't always black and white and individual circumstances matter. Sometimes people work on short term contracts and aren't going to live somewhere for very long. Sometimes people need to move in a hurry and don't have time to do due diligence buying a property.
As much as some of you may hate it, renting fills a need and isn't always a bad thing.
The problem with the housing market is part euclidean zoning, part NIMBYism, part capitalism on too long of a leash. It really has nothing to do with rent vs buy.
It was a lot more than 1% in 2008. In the US, 1% is 3 million people.
This discussion about renting vs owning and the overall real estate market are related but not the same thing.
My point is, owning isn't always the best option, it has risks that vary depending on location, it isn't always the best financial moving.
Always and never are rarely true. As I said in another comment, the ideal situation is a variety of housing options available for buying or renting.
Back in 2007, I was working on a contract that could have had me moving on short notice, in a housing bubble. Buying would have been insane in that market and I would have lost a few hundred k. Even if it wasn't a bubble, buying would have put me in a worse situation than renting due to transaction costs, interest, insurance, taxes, and opportunity costs. I own now.
THANK YOU! I get so tired of: buy good. Rent bad. The answer is it depends. 2008 was only 15 years ago. Many people lost boat loads of money from it. People HAVE lost lots of money from factory closures, base closures, market bubbles, a highway being built, etc
The ideal situation is a variety of housing options, for sale and rent.
Tell that to the home owners whose equity is wiped out when the factories were offshored or the base closed.
The point is, there are no guarantees. Buy vs rent depends on a person's circumstances. Buying has risks. People have lost lots of money by buying at the wrong time (like 2008) or the wrong place.
Markets don't always go up. Market prices can be very disconnected from reality as we have seen with many bubbles throughout the years.
I think some of this is defeatism and blaming the corporations. Corporations are about half the problem IMO. The stuff we all buy is made by these corporations. Buy less stuff. Buy quality. Repair stuff. Buy used stuff. Drive less. Don't buy a canyonero or monster truck to drive in a suburb. Rent a truck if you need one, you'll save $$$$ and emissions. Beef is a huge culprit. Eat less beef. Other meats tend to be cheaper anyway. Replace meat in a meal with rice and beans or lentils. You will also save money.
Vote for ending car dependency in cities and suburbs.
Talk to people. Mention saving money to retire early. Most people think work sucks.