Community for asking and answering any question related to the life, the people or anything related to the USA. Non-US people are welcome to provide their perspective! Please keep in mind:
I managed to buy a small house during the weird financial stuff going on during covid. As much as this gif is accurate, I like it better than renting.
I have a mortgage, which we like to call "owning" but is really me renting-to-own from the bank.
I vastly prefer this to just renting. At least a portion of the money I spend on housing is going towards something I will eventually own (20+ years from now).
Own, but I'm not at all handy so I bought a condo. It's the best of both worlds - I don't have to worry about the roof or water heater, and never have to mow grass or shovel the sidewalk, yet I build equity and my mortgage is cheaper than rent would be. I imagine I'll stick with a condo for as long as I'm single and will get a single family home if I ever get married.
I am just grateful not to have to pack up my life every year and relocate to the next lease.
Rent. Probably could buy if I got my shit together, but I'm skeptical that my employer won't go down the toilet in the next few years with the "pricing pressures" and the fact that they just laid off like 60% of their non-preservative R&D staff.
Husband owns this house.
Because his parents died.
Only way he'd ever own a home. We both rather they were alive.
This is the unfortunate truth for a lot of us, because I am also in a situation where the only way I will be able to afford a home is when my parents pass.
Own. I saved for years because I didn't ever want to rent again.
I managed to buy a small house during the weird financial stuff going on during covid
Same, except I got lucky and managed to buy right before covid. Was able to take advantage of the weird financial stuff and re-finance less than a year into my mortgage, though. Worked out pretty well. Went from a 20-year fixed at 4% to a 15-year fixed at 2.8%.
Own. I miss renting. It was expensive and a little crowded but that's an artifact of the US housing market being fucked. I don't want to be responsibility for a building as a little hobby. It's a waste of my time
Rent. I move cities every 3-5 years chasing my dream job though so... yeah, rent it is. I'm looking to possibly also lose the current job as well, so it's also rent as far into the future as I can see.
On the bright side, I don't have to pay for any appliances 🤷♂️.
I rent and I want to be dead on a daily basis. The exploitative nature of nearly every part of human civilization wears on me to the point i find life not worth the effort in any way shape or form.
My parents cursed me for a hit of dopamine. Hopefully next life they just shoot up meth or something instead of creating a new wage slave.
Rent. I always end up fixing shit around the flat though, because it literally won't ever get done if I leave it to my landlord.
My downstairs neighbor's windows were practically falling out, and couldn't be closed (in Scandinavia), but getting them changed still took 2 years.
I really want to own my own house.
Own.
100% what we want, our mortgage is about 60% what the rent would be for a similar home.
We got fortunate as first time home buyers, there's a grant that allows all the way down to a 3% down payment, which was still unaffordable... until my partner got in a car wreck, and got quite a lot from the settlement. (Shes all right, played it up slightly) She covered almost the entire down payment, so our split of the mortgage is more of a 2/1 ratio, but I make more so it works out.
We've calculated the number of payments it will take for us to equal her initial down payment with my contributions, then at that point we'll shift to a 1/1 for the mortgage.
Unless we get married first, then our finances get more mingled and tricky lol. We'll see!
I own and 100% it's what I want. This is pretty much my dream house and I would burn it to the ground before I let someone else live here.
Own. I managed not to blow my entire inheritance and bought a house (that’s too small and built by some truly incompetent people) just before the prices started to get stupid. It’s “worth” 2.5x.
It’s mostly too small because my kids will never be able to afford a house of their own.
Own. Bought a modest house (1,300sqft) after the 2007 crash. I have a lot of apartment buildings for customers and wouldn't want to live in any of the ones I could afford. I'm waiting for Trump to wreck the economy so I can pounce again and buy a larger house so my elderly father can move in with me
Own. I wanted to buy in my early 20's but wasn't able to make it happen until my mid 30's. (Nothing like chasing a skyrocketing housing market, amiright?) I hate being responsible for all the maintenance, but otherwise it's a huge step up in every way. I never want to go back to renting.
All those years of renting left me with a lifelong distaste for landlords. Perpetually renting is part of the American poverty trap, IMO. I hate seeing my peers buying up the last would-be starter homes to turn them into rentals. And I hate that all the new construction around me is targeting higher-income buyers. If I had the time and money, I would love to build modest homes and sell them to first-time buyers and new parents.
Own. Bought a house as-is and fixed it up. Well, am in the process of fixing it up.
Well, am in the process of fixing it up.
It's a lifestyle. The fixing up never ends.
My only remaining 'hobbies' are home improvement and parenting, it's true.
At least both are rewarding hobbies!
What level of fixup / how handy are you? A friend bought a house without working plumbing and had to flush by pouring buckets of water down the toilets, but they're pretty handy and actually fixed it up. I'm not that handy, but you can get really good deals if you're willing to put up with that sort of thing.
I spent half again what I paid for the house on immediate fixes before moving in: new supply plumbing, new electric main, new roof.
After moving I had to immediately dip into the emergency fund to fix the heat, including re-lining the chimney. A year later, got masons in to fix the stone lintel above the front windows before it came crashing down. At that point it was $61K house, $39K renovations before moving, $7K emergency fixes.
I've done most of the work since myself; I know carpentry, waste plumbing, and some electrical from my teen years. Anything that could kill me, ie. main power or ladder work, I will hire professionals for. I've had to learn pressurized plumbing and insulation already and am in the process of learning masonry and HVAC.
The house was last upgraded in 1929 –I know because I've seen the newspapers they used for insulation– so there's a lot to be done. But the foundation is stable, the walls are straight, and the timbers are old-growth. Someday we'll have all three bedrooms usable at once, God willing.
Rent. I fucking wish we owned, but finances don’t allow for it and probably won’t for at least another 5 years, if we’re lucky.
I rent and I don't love it, but my dream living situation (houseboat) will require years of career development to get financially stable enough to afford it so I'd rather not tie myself down to a property before then anyway
We got very lucky and we're able to buy in the 'teens when interest rates were still low after the 2008 collapse.
This summer a whole bunch of stuff we both want and need to do (but can't/won't DIY) are all happening at once, and in 3 months half my annual salary will have been spent. Spent to make things exactly like we want them, so still better than renting.
Own.
Yes.
Because money and the future.
I know that real estate and investing in a home shouldn't be a thing and actively corrupts the economy. But, unfortunately, the herd does what the herd does, AND the real estate class is charging rent like never before. So, you survive. Plus owning land is always nice.
I own but I bought at the wrong time and now $100k in the red. Fun times.
I'll see your submarine mortgage and raise you $4/sqft/mo rent. RENT.
Having said that, black-mold-contaminated 1918 homes are going for 2mil, so rent in this concrete building with AC will do.
I want the capital to make the option a real choice for tge average American.
Wanted to own working towards bringing living expenses to zero. But that’s not possible so I’m happy renting. Not having to deal with any stress of maintaining a place is liberating in its own right
We own, but only because my husband put the effort in before we met. If I was on my own I’d probably live on a boat. Bought a place he could afford by himself but lived super frugally and had roommates so he could pay it down faster. We flipped that into a house that needed work, did a bunch ourselves and got it looking pretty nice. We wanted to get out of the city though so eventually moved up island and got acreage. And a house that needed a ton of work. We moved before prices got crazy, would never be able to afford it now. Been here 14 years and we just keep puttering away at it. I love my home and all its quirks, I feel safe and loved here. I’m not so enamoured with the community as much as I was when we moved here, but people come and go. There’s some gems though. We’re kinda stuck here though as we’ll never be able to get better than we have unless we moved really far north.
The idea is to build a cottage for my daughter since she’ll never be able to afford her own place. Then later if she needs more space for her own family we’ll move into it. Told her she’s gonna have to help build and design it though. And get a job at the local hardware store/lumber yard for the discount lol.
Still mortgaged, but that's what ownership looks like in the US, mostly.
And, yeah, fuck paying someone for something they can take away with minimum warning. A home is just too fundamental a need for me. A home that someone else controls is not the same thing at all, on the level that matters in that regard.
Own. Actually we bought our first house in 1998 at age 22 not because we wanted to, but because prices were rising fast and we felt that we might miss our window if we waited longer. It was severely in need of renovation, and we did just that in a few months with a lot if help from friends and family. Sold the house and bought another house in 2000, which was at that time about seventy years old and showing it's age (basically barely inhabitable). We did some major rebuilding from 2002 until 2004, and have been improving it on and off ever since, always saving up money in between. I like it this way, we've got a house we could have never afforded 25 years ago, but do have the same mortgage costs we had in 2000. You have to be handy to do it this way though.
Own outright. That means pay off the mortgage. To get there I purchase at a price I can get a 15 year mortage but actually get a 30 year mortgage with the intention of paying as if its a 15. Take a few months at 30 to build up an emergency fund but once its well funded do the pay like its a 15 thing. Back off during emergencies. Im unemployed and reducing my expenses to bare bones. This means getting a place much poorer than the typical person at your income level. If you can't afford doing this expect to be underwater during a crises.
Thank fuck I own. Renting here would be such a goddamn waste.
Own.
Upsides:
Downsides:
We've been homeowners for decades now, there's really no going back, but I don't miss renting at all. Full disclosure, our rental time was always in apartments, never in a single-family home. My in-laws rented a single-family for a few years after a foreclosure, and it didn't seem any different from our ownership. If I was to go back to renting, it would be that. No more apartments for me.
I rent and will never be allowed to own. If I could ever be lucky enough to own a house so I can just pay propty tax and quit my 40hr a week job i would become a different person I would be so happy.
The highest paying jobs in my city still trap me living paycheck to paycheck.
I hate being, my life will probably end soon so at least I have that to look forward to
I own but I got in the game back at the end of the 90s and paid my house off in like 10 years. Have never bothered to move even though it's only like 1000 sq ft. Gradually adding crap onto it though, so now it does have AC and about to have solar, lol.