> For decades part of the logic for buying a house was that, after the down payment, mortgage payments were generally cheaper than renting.
I thought the logic was that, after say 30 years, you own the home you were making mortgage payments on.
My dad explained it to me best. He had bought a single-family house in Homer, Alaska after having moved up there and working in construction for a number of years. He had never owned a home in his life. He got a 30-year fixed loan. He said at the time he was questioning himself as to what he was doing — mortgage payments were something like $400 a month!
"Ten years on, you know what the monthly mortgage was?" he asked me. "$400 a month," was his (obvious) answer. He laughed when he said it because at the time that would have been peanuts for rent.
He wasn't there for the whole of 30 years but had enough equity in the home some years later that when he did sell it he was able to outright purchase land out East End and build a new home on it.
To be sure, times have changed — the market has changed (interest rates have changed of nothing else). But putting money toward ownership still seems like a win.
Ericson2314 · 1h ago
Certainly over mortgage payments is balanced by risk of unexpected repair and upkeep costs. Property capital gains is balanced by the capital gains you could have from investing in other things instead.
> My dad explained it to me best.
I'm glad you have a found memory of your dad explaining it to you, but this bunch of folk wisdom is killing is killing this country.
Calling them fond memories is not a way I would have characterized them. Regardless, the same strategy regarding home ownership worked for me.
Of course to your point there's no telling if I had been renting and putting every extra dollar into the stock market if I might not have come out ahead. But realistically how many people "invest" in that manner with their income? I can tell you my blue-collar background had not raised me to be investment savvy. (I would have no idea what capital gains were until I was probably in my forties.) I suspect that for most people with similar upbringing an investment in their home is their only significant investment in their lifetime — or it was once that way.
(Who knew they were killing this country.)
I guess that one's out the window now as well then if they can't even afford that.
Unexpected repair and upkeep cost — you're suggesting the landlords just eat that?
(In my case I have learned to do repairs myself. That has been very liberating, FWIW.)
If I am following, your alternative is that we all become renters for life — using any extra money we have to invest in the stock market?
tomjakubowski · 36m ago
I think it's really difficult to put a number or dollar figure on the sense of security you'd feel living in a home you own with no mortgage, especially in retirement years.
more_corn · 41m ago
Don’t be a dick.
Also, economists agree that owning property is still one of the best ways of generating long-term wealth. It’s not folk wisdom. It’s science.
The only homeownership that is tolerable is multiunit (condos). The rest is a mess of terrible land use we lack the societal strength to prevent. The sooner we get away from our single family home fetish that prices people away from jobs, the better. We will all be fabulously wealthier once we do.
I'm glad the author of the piece understands this, and points out repeatedly that renting might not be that bad — better for the individual and better for society.
DaveZale · 2h ago
But don't condos tend to involve HOAs, which are often overpriced and corrupt?
I swore off renting and HOAs many years ago. But for city life, there's not much of a choice, absoulutely.
Ericson2314 · 1h ago
Many HOAs do suck, but density unfortunately does require greater coordination amount residents. Either the residents do it themselves, or the landlord does it.
Single stair allowing narrower buildings side by side ameliorates them problem though, in that the units of coordination are much smaller.
more_corn · 7m ago
Having a hoa fee also changes your mortgage math.
chickenzzzzu · 2h ago
Sorry, dense housing is loud, smelly, and dangerous. You can't force me to live in a prison like that.
The world simply needs less people. Trying to cram more people into less space is inhumane.
wpm · 44m ago
According to the last US census, the tract I live in in Chicago is one of the densest places in the city outside of central districts with high-rises.
I live in a two flat. When I go outside, I am greeted by squirrels and the honey bees from next door (the lady keeps them to help her garden, which is beautiful). Large, lush trees line the block from and back. The only smells that waft over are the smells from other people's cooking.
The loudest nuisances are leaf blowers, loud cars, car horns, and dirt bikes. All things that occured at the same rate, if not more, in the single-family-home-only suburb I grew up in.
The most danger in my day to day life is caused by people in cars: driving too fast, not stopping and yielding when proper and required, and generally just being shit at piloting a vehicle. This was far more pronounced in the same suburb I grew up in, to the point of being so oppressive I couldn't really go anywhere without one.
Literally nothing about my "dense" living is loud (to an unreasonable degree), smelly (unless like, other people grilling chicken is offensive to you), or dangerous (vs the baseline rates at least).
No one should be forcing you to live in a "prison" like mine (where I can walk 5 minutes to an excellent grocery store or 10 minutes to a larger supermarket, god, the horror!), but you shouldn't be forcing me to live in a "prison" like a sprawled out SFH only suburb by encoding your preferences into zoning code and law. The simple fact is that more people prefer to live like I do, given what houses are going for around here, exacerbated all the more by the fact that if my neighborhood burned down, it would be *illegal* to build it back the way it exists now.
chickenzzzzu · 22m ago
Ok, let me try to take your post point by point.
I am happy for you that you are living in a community that sounds like it is more or less to your liking. I am not saying your lifestyle should be illegal or prohibitively expensive, which I think you are saying certain pro-SFH people with zoning/lobbying power are trying to do. I am definitely against those types of people.
I do agree as well that cars are a nuissance and a danger. My ideal view of the world involves SFH with acreage, and the banning of noisy gas cars and leafblowers. I don't even like electric cars all that much, I would prefer most people bike, and that heavy delivery trucks deliver to centralized locations instead of everywhere. I will not excuse the actions of fellow car drivers at all.
What I will vehemently defend, however, is the rational pricing and legality of single family housing with acreage. There is no possible way that I will live with people surrounding me on 6 sides, banging their feet on the ground, blasting music, cooking all their different cuisines going into a shared AC system, screaming. There is no possible way I will put myself in proximity to those, thanks to the way our world is architected, choose violent crime on random bystanders.
You cannot take that right away from me, and if you do, I will go somewhere where I still have that right. And if there is nowhere left to go, then you know what happens next, and only history can give you examples from then on, such as what happened to the Ukrainian Kulaks in the 1930s.
more_corn · 6m ago
There are plenty of open spaces outside of cities.
Ericson2314 · 1h ago
Get excited, the world is gonna have less people!
But the amount of population decline needed to give everyone American-style suburbs that are small enough to not have horrible commutes is....a lot.
If you go to Europe, you can see ~5 story density is not loud, not smelly, and not dangerous though. It's also not dangerous in America either (but loudness and smells are problems because we're dumb as shit about these things). So I dunno, you do you, but I in the city don't wanna subsidize your coddling in the myriad ways I do today.
9rx · 48m ago
> I in the city don't wanna subsidize your coddling in the myriad ways I do today.
Then stop...? Subsidies have an expected return on investment. If that isn't being realized, there is no reason for you to continue. I bet you won't, though. It is easy to say you don't want to give when it is nothing more than talk. Acting upon it, however, necessitates giving up what you get in return, and we both know you don't actually want to give that up.
chickenzzzzu · 31m ago
Sorry I'm not sure I agree with this either. How does he have a choice to not pay taxes?
9rx · 23m ago
1. How do you think taxes are paid, exactly, that removes choice? Certainly if you don't pay taxes you will be cut off from everything that taxes offer in return, so it is unlikely to be a choice you want to make, but we already went down that road of what happens if you give up on your end of the bargain.
2. Taxes aren't paid to a magical deity in the sky. It is merely a pool of resources shared by a community. How the resources are used are up to the community. The community equally expects a return on subsidies.
chickenzzzzu · 20m ago
I don't exactly understand. If you don't pay taxes in the USA (as a normal every day person), you will literally be put into jail.
If it is true what he is saying, that his taxes subsidize my SFH lifestyle, then he is correct to say that he is tired of being forced to coddle me.
9rx · 18m ago
> you will literally be put into jail.
Sure. That's a pretty good way to ensure that you don't see the benefits if you don't contribute. At a national scale it is probably the only way to ensure it as it is pretty hard to keep tabs on someone otherwise.
> that his taxes subsidize my SFH lifestyle, then he is correct to say that he is tired of being forced to coddle me.
He isn't forced to. He can remove himself from the community which he does not align with. Even better, he can work to reshape the community to fit his expectations. If the subsidy isn't working, he won't be alone in wanting change. No doubt the community is simply waiting for someone to stand up and resolve the matter. Things don't get fixed by way of magic. But being part of a community that sees a need for subsidies is part of the expected return on investment. The community wouldn't be what it is without those subsidies.
chickenzzzzu · 1h ago
I would be very interested in hearing how you subsidize my lifestyle, and I will refrain from flippant attacks like "do you pay my mortgage" because it sounds like you are alleging there is some externality that I am producing that you are paying for.
Regarding horrible commutes, I for one believe that it is the companies who demand in person work who are the ones who are being coddled here with transport infrastructure. In reality, we need a two speed road network-- one for seriously heavy trucking, and the other for bikes. I have no problem giving up my personal car, if that's the angle you are going to take.
I thought the logic was that, after say 30 years, you own the home you were making mortgage payments on.
My dad explained it to me best. He had bought a single-family house in Homer, Alaska after having moved up there and working in construction for a number of years. He had never owned a home in his life. He got a 30-year fixed loan. He said at the time he was questioning himself as to what he was doing — mortgage payments were something like $400 a month!
"Ten years on, you know what the monthly mortgage was?" he asked me. "$400 a month," was his (obvious) answer. He laughed when he said it because at the time that would have been peanuts for rent.
He wasn't there for the whole of 30 years but had enough equity in the home some years later that when he did sell it he was able to outright purchase land out East End and build a new home on it.
To be sure, times have changed — the market has changed (interest rates have changed of nothing else). But putting money toward ownership still seems like a win.
> My dad explained it to me best.
I'm glad you have a found memory of your dad explaining it to you, but this bunch of folk wisdom is killing is killing this country.
One has to actually run the numbers to see how all the things net out. I would start with https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/upshot/buy-rent-cal...
Of course to your point there's no telling if I had been renting and putting every extra dollar into the stock market if I might not have come out ahead. But realistically how many people "invest" in that manner with their income? I can tell you my blue-collar background had not raised me to be investment savvy. (I would have no idea what capital gains were until I was probably in my forties.) I suspect that for most people with similar upbringing an investment in their home is their only significant investment in their lifetime — or it was once that way.
(Who knew they were killing this country.)
I guess that one's out the window now as well then if they can't even afford that.
Unexpected repair and upkeep cost — you're suggesting the landlords just eat that?
(In my case I have learned to do repairs myself. That has been very liberating, FWIW.)
If I am following, your alternative is that we all become renters for life — using any extra money we have to invest in the stock market?
The only homeownership that is tolerable is multiunit (condos). The rest is a mess of terrible land use we lack the societal strength to prevent. The sooner we get away from our single family home fetish that prices people away from jobs, the better. We will all be fabulously wealthier once we do.
I'm glad the author of the piece understands this, and points out repeatedly that renting might not be that bad — better for the individual and better for society.
I swore off renting and HOAs many years ago. But for city life, there's not much of a choice, absoulutely.
Single stair allowing narrower buildings side by side ameliorates them problem though, in that the units of coordination are much smaller.
The world simply needs less people. Trying to cram more people into less space is inhumane.
I live in a two flat. When I go outside, I am greeted by squirrels and the honey bees from next door (the lady keeps them to help her garden, which is beautiful). Large, lush trees line the block from and back. The only smells that waft over are the smells from other people's cooking.
The loudest nuisances are leaf blowers, loud cars, car horns, and dirt bikes. All things that occured at the same rate, if not more, in the single-family-home-only suburb I grew up in.
The most danger in my day to day life is caused by people in cars: driving too fast, not stopping and yielding when proper and required, and generally just being shit at piloting a vehicle. This was far more pronounced in the same suburb I grew up in, to the point of being so oppressive I couldn't really go anywhere without one.
Literally nothing about my "dense" living is loud (to an unreasonable degree), smelly (unless like, other people grilling chicken is offensive to you), or dangerous (vs the baseline rates at least).
No one should be forcing you to live in a "prison" like mine (where I can walk 5 minutes to an excellent grocery store or 10 minutes to a larger supermarket, god, the horror!), but you shouldn't be forcing me to live in a "prison" like a sprawled out SFH only suburb by encoding your preferences into zoning code and law. The simple fact is that more people prefer to live like I do, given what houses are going for around here, exacerbated all the more by the fact that if my neighborhood burned down, it would be *illegal* to build it back the way it exists now.
I am happy for you that you are living in a community that sounds like it is more or less to your liking. I am not saying your lifestyle should be illegal or prohibitively expensive, which I think you are saying certain pro-SFH people with zoning/lobbying power are trying to do. I am definitely against those types of people.
I do agree as well that cars are a nuissance and a danger. My ideal view of the world involves SFH with acreage, and the banning of noisy gas cars and leafblowers. I don't even like electric cars all that much, I would prefer most people bike, and that heavy delivery trucks deliver to centralized locations instead of everywhere. I will not excuse the actions of fellow car drivers at all.
What I will vehemently defend, however, is the rational pricing and legality of single family housing with acreage. There is no possible way that I will live with people surrounding me on 6 sides, banging their feet on the ground, blasting music, cooking all their different cuisines going into a shared AC system, screaming. There is no possible way I will put myself in proximity to those, thanks to the way our world is architected, choose violent crime on random bystanders.
You cannot take that right away from me, and if you do, I will go somewhere where I still have that right. And if there is nowhere left to go, then you know what happens next, and only history can give you examples from then on, such as what happened to the Ukrainian Kulaks in the 1930s.
But the amount of population decline needed to give everyone American-style suburbs that are small enough to not have horrible commutes is....a lot.
If you go to Europe, you can see ~5 story density is not loud, not smelly, and not dangerous though. It's also not dangerous in America either (but loudness and smells are problems because we're dumb as shit about these things). So I dunno, you do you, but I in the city don't wanna subsidize your coddling in the myriad ways I do today.
Then stop...? Subsidies have an expected return on investment. If that isn't being realized, there is no reason for you to continue. I bet you won't, though. It is easy to say you don't want to give when it is nothing more than talk. Acting upon it, however, necessitates giving up what you get in return, and we both know you don't actually want to give that up.
2. Taxes aren't paid to a magical deity in the sky. It is merely a pool of resources shared by a community. How the resources are used are up to the community. The community equally expects a return on subsidies.
If it is true what he is saying, that his taxes subsidize my SFH lifestyle, then he is correct to say that he is tired of being forced to coddle me.
Sure. That's a pretty good way to ensure that you don't see the benefits if you don't contribute. At a national scale it is probably the only way to ensure it as it is pretty hard to keep tabs on someone otherwise.
> that his taxes subsidize my SFH lifestyle, then he is correct to say that he is tired of being forced to coddle me.
He isn't forced to. He can remove himself from the community which he does not align with. Even better, he can work to reshape the community to fit his expectations. If the subsidy isn't working, he won't be alone in wanting change. No doubt the community is simply waiting for someone to stand up and resolve the matter. Things don't get fixed by way of magic. But being part of a community that sees a need for subsidies is part of the expected return on investment. The community wouldn't be what it is without those subsidies.
Regarding horrible commutes, I for one believe that it is the companies who demand in person work who are the ones who are being coddled here with transport infrastructure. In reality, we need a two speed road network-- one for seriously heavy trucking, and the other for bikes. I have no problem giving up my personal car, if that's the angle you are going to take.