this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2024
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[–] [email protected] 73 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (10 children)

As a homeowner what weighs me down most is insurance, by a large margin. It keeps increasing while the coverage decreases. It's a huge racket in my opinion

[–] [email protected] 47 points 4 days ago

Racket.

A racquet is what you hit your insurance adjuster with when you're tired of his racket.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 days ago (4 children)

Do they mean "buying" instead of "owning"?

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[–] [email protected] 56 points 4 days ago (4 children)

On paper, owning a home is almost always more expensive than renting — about 14% more, on average, after factoring in expenses like insurance, taxes, and upkeep.

I'd be interested in seeing how they arrived at the 14% number.

When I bought my first home a couple of decades ago I moved out of my 1 bedroom apartment which I was paying a monthly rent of $700/month into a small starter home with a mortgage of $1000/month. 20 years later that exact same apartment rents for $1350/month. All of the years I lived there my house payment never rose higher than the $1000/month mortgage payment while the rent on the apartment apparently continued to increase year over year. Meanwhile I ended up selling the starter home for $110,000 than my purchase prices nearly 20 years ago.

So is their 14% number just calculated on the first month of each (renting vs buying)?

[–] [email protected] 31 points 4 days ago (13 children)

Once you factor in things it mentions like insurance, taxes, upkeep along with others like a down payment then it's very easy to see where the 14% numbers comes from. Frankly, I'm surprised it's only 14%. There's a lot of additional and hidden costs with home ownership.

[–] [email protected] 43 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (8 children)

The difference is those "costs" are going towards buying equity that you then get to keep. Maintaining a house is expensive but it is an asset that maintains value. This article really doesn't seem to understand that which shows a very basic misunderstanding of the wealth math that goes into home ownership.

Renting may be cheaper month to month but you're literally pouring that money down a black hole never to be seen in your hands again.

Granted, building equity doesn't matter when you're already have no cash paycheck-to-paycheck for either.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 days ago (9 children)

No, not all of them. Insurance, property tax, and maintenance do not go to equity.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

For me, I'm in a condo that we bought with a 15-year mortgage during the pandemic. My mortgage (including escrow/taxes and insurance) plus HOA fees is about $2100/month. My old apartment (including monthly pet fee) was more than that when I lived there. It's currently listed for $2500/month (big complex, not necessarily my unit).

I promise all y'all I'm not spending $400/month on homeowner-specific costs. And, I could reduce my monthly cost by moving to a 30-year mortgage instead of a 15-year mortgage.

Edit: looked up my old apartment again. Holy shit, it's listed for $2750, which doesn't include a pet fee.

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (6 children)

I am confused, my thought process went like this:

So it's more expensive to own then rent?

Unless you own it and rent it out to others?

Nobody would be a landlord if a dwelling cost more to maintain then to rent out.

So something doesn't add up.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 4 days ago

Most landlords bought the place earlier when home prices and mortgage rates were lower, or they just own the place outright and don't make any mortgage payments.

This article is about choosing whether to buy at current rates or rent at current rates. If you bought a place 10 years ago for half the price it's worth now and a 2% interest rate then you're probably going to be paying less then renting

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (4 children)

When you mortgage a home as an investment property, you are leveraging your money 5-1 (on a 20% down payment)

If rent covers 90% of the mortgage, you still make an absolutely huge profit amortized over the loan.

If you consider the tax incentives (interest write off, depreciation, capital gains deferment, pass through deduction) the gap in the rent can be covered.

Consider paying 50k down on a 250k house, the. Paying an additional 15 percent over the life of the loan (around 40k) to cover for gaps in rent.

Over the life of the loan you turned 90 grand into 250 grand (and a house is an appreciating asset, so it will likely be worth more than 250 by the end of it all)

Deduct depreciation (value of the home minus land value over 27.5 years) and carry over losses can even make up for the gap of rent you pay entirely over time.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago

This is only looking at a point in time, not the life of the loan. In the US at least, we have fixed rate loans (many countries do not have that). So your "rent" when you mortgage a home is fixed for 30 years. When you rent, your rental costs increase with inflation every year. While it might be 14% higher to mortgage than rent right now, in a few years your mortgage will stay the same while your rent will have increased. Yes, there are repair/maintenance costs, but after 5 years or so you are saving enough per month to pay for those repairs.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 days ago

I believe they are taking into account the cost to purchase these days since interest rates are higher, ergo high mortgage payments.

As someone else mentioned most landlords have locked in rates at this point. Not many new landlords.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 days ago (4 children)

I might still not understand but... Landlords have to pay insurance as well. Why would they be the exception. They have all the same costs and also want to make a profit. How can rent be cheaper then?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Two things: first, landlords aren't entitled to a profit, and second, landlord input costs might be completely different from an owner resident.

On the first point, if the landlord's costs are $2000/month, and the market rent for that unit is $1900/month, the landlord would rather lose $100/month on a lease than lose $2000/month on a vacant property.

On the second, it might be that the landlord bought the place when it was much cheaper, or has a much lower interest rate than what is available today. So if the landlord's costs are $2000/month for a property that would now cost $4000/month at today's purchase prices and interest rates, but can rent for $3000/month at a profit to himself.

Similarly, some volume landlords can spread certain costs around and not pay nearly as much as an owner resident. It might cost $1200 to hire a plumber to do a 6-hour job, but it also might cost $150 to simply have a plumber on the payroll to do that job, if you've got enough steady work that it's cheaper to have him around.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Because if you buy a house, it's just you and the bank, so you need to cover the banks risk for you as an individual, meaning higher interest rates. Larger purchases, or a group of houses are covered by different loan types, flexible rates at for example international rated plus half a point.. and that is mich cheaper. The rate might fluctuate.. but if the government strongarms the fed to keep the loans practically free, companies borrow for free plus half a point. And that is a lot of difference.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 days ago

Also, the landlord is dropping that money into an asset that often appreciates in value. As long as they otherwise have cashflow to cover it, they can afford to "lose" money each month and make a big payday when they sell it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago

Because markets aren't perfectly rational. If they were perfectly efficient, no company would ever be able to make a profit at all. But we don't live in that perfect Econ 101 world, and companies can make profits because inefficiencies exist in the economy. As such, sometimes rent can be more expensive than owning.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 days ago (4 children)

Highly dependent on where one lives I guess. My friend just rented a new apartment and his rent is over double what my mortage payments are. That's also money he is never getting back where as in my case my house is paid in about 15 years after which I own the damn thing and the monthly mortage payment drops off entirely. Excluding mortage, the montly cost of owning my house is 275€ which includes water and electricity.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Excluding mortage, the montly cost of owning my house is 275€ which includes water and electricity.

That's also excluding regular maintenance or emergency repairs that a landlord would be (often reluctantly) responsible for. It is also possible to do big, expensive, necessary renovations on a house and have it hardly affect the value at all.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 days ago (4 children)

It is also possible to do big, expensive, necessary renovations on a house and have it hardly affect the value at all.

Isn't this kind of irrelevant unless you're a house flipper? If you own a house and make renovations to it, it is because you find some practical value in it.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 4 days ago (14 children)

Cost of materials and demand for contractors. Even if you DIY it, everything is 3x as expensive as it was before covid. The price of lumber never really went back to where it was before covid. Its clearly price gouging.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 days ago (14 children)

This ignores the difference after 5-10 years. Rent keeps going up.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 days ago

We livin in a new gilded age, bruh.

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