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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
People are confusing home ownership with real estate investment. A home is a place to live. One person on here said she kept buying up and has purchased 6 homes. The closing costs and moving costs of doing that would knock out a lot of whatever "investment" increases that person got. I'm sure if you bought and sold at just the right times you could make some money, but life is short and moving is a PITA.

The people who are renting out their homes are investors. Investors can write off depreciation on those homes. Yes, homes are a depreciating asset. Why? Because of maintenance. If a home is not maintained it turns into a dump. And maintenance is getting more expensive as a result of tariffs and inflation. You also have to pay taxes and insurance so a home is never really "paid off". Plus it's a "hands on" investment. You have to deal with making maintenance decisions. It's not a passive investment so your time in maintaining it should be considered as a cost when you compare it to stocks (for example).

My suggestion to OP is that if you buy a home, have a pretty good emergency fund in place after the purchase. Enjoy the home, but do not think that you are going to get rich by owning a home. Buy a home that is priced below your ability to pay for it. Do not listen to anyone who says you should "max out" on your home purchase (based on what you are qualified to borrow).

People say that landlords can increase your rent. Yes, they can. But your insurance and taxes on an "owned" home can increase as well from one year to the next. The price of maintenance goes up every year.

As immigrants are kicked out and the boomers die, the price of housing and rents may not go up. In fact rents may be the first thing that goes down. [/quote]

There’s so much wrong with this previous post I don’t even know where to begin. Obviously made by a left-wing socialist who believes in collectivism.

Yes there are ever increasing maintenance and insurance costs as well as mortgage, property taxes, closing and moving costs when owning a home. But you also have those costs to when renting (taxes, maintenance, HOA, insurance, mortgage are all wrapped up into the price of the rent by the owner). And you have nothing to show for that at the end of the month as a renter but the owner has a little more equity. When you move from rental to rental you pay those moving costs as well. The appreciation on the home is so much greater than those costs. One of my houses is up over $1M in value from my purchase price in 2013 but all my costs come nowhere near that amount. Perhaps $100K-$200K in the same time frame. And I sell all my houses via FSBO keeping closing costs down.[/quote]

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