Renting is increasingly cheaper than buying a home

5 comments

1. By Giulia Carbonaro – US News Reporter:

   Aspiring homeowners who have been waiting for years for prices and mortgage rates to come down and supplies to expand are likely to continue putting off purchasing a property, as renting is currently more affordable than buying a starter home.

   A recent report from [Realtor.com](http://Realtor.com) using February data found that the cost of buying a starter home—which considers monthly mortgage payments—in every one of the country’s 50 largest metropolitan areas was $1,027 (60.1 percent) higher than renting an apartment in these same cities. A year earlier, in February 2023, buying a home was $865 (50.4 percent) higher than renting—which means that the convenience of renting over buying is increasing.

   Read more: [https://www.newsweek.com/renting-now-cheaper-buying-home-1901264](https://www.newsweek.com/renting-now-cheaper-buying-home-1901264)

2. As a homeowner( single family home), I can attest to this but from another anecdotal data point. It’s bloody time-consuming and expensive to maintain the house. You have to landscape and maintain, power wash the house, clean your vents, change filters, keep adding water softener salt, change appliances every few years (and they are breaking down sooner now), toilets clog up, basements need to be kept dry, driveways need to be redone in few years or resealed, gutters need to be cleaned, mailboxes stoop over, cleaning of a larger space, bathroom floord need regrouting, fucking bathroom fan motors give in, pests invade, fear of radon gas and termites and much much more. It’s a lot of work, and you can’t gig out all of it unless you make a ton of money.

   There are days I want to go back to renting. The only positive thing for me is the equity I have built and the extra space my family has.

3. Owning a house is both more and less expensive than renting….

   1. Over time, the proportion of your income taken up by “rent” on a home you own gets smaller.

   2. The initial investment and maintenance of a home is expensive.

   3. Renters have to move more frequently, and often unexpectedly at exactly the wrong time,…. and that’s expensive.

   4. Your landlord can raise your rate by $500 per month…. your mortgage will only go up by a little bit if property taxes increase.

   5. If you have an unexpected expense, and you are generally responsible with your money… you can get a loan at a lower interest rate because you are a homeowner than you could get as a renter.

4. Over a 10yr period renting is always more expensive. After ten years of renting a person will have no options for recouping a single dollar they have paid in rent. After ten years of owning a home a person can sell the home. Even if the home sale only profits the owner 1% the value of the home that is still more than a renter will ever see back from their rent.

5. what is crazy to me living in southern California… the apartment we first rented here 25 years ago has doubled in price since then… but the frist condo we bought is up 5x in the same period. Mortgages skyrocketed