Imagine having your house paid for, and you grow old and you have no rent to pay.

My home is "paid for". Except for the HOA and property taxes that are not that far off from what I was previously paying in rent, the ongoing maintenance costs with random large spikes, and the opportunity cost of having a large chunk of money in the house and not in the market. It was still probably the right decision, but it's not at all a free lunch.

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sgt an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Surely though, the HOA and all that would likely be baked into a renter's price.

And you didn't need to go live in a HOA. I don't, and it's much cheaper.

	▲	orangecat an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Surely though, the HOA and all that would likely be baked into a renter's price. Sure, the same way that the benefits of a fixed mortgage payment are baked into sale prices. The efficient market hypothesis would say that neither renting nor buying should be obviously superior in the long term, because if either was then people would bid up rents/prices until it wasn't. And you didn't need to go live in a HOA I pretty much did, unless I wanted to significantly compromise on other factors.

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ffsm8 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

And it's gonna be interesting wherever this narrative will shift over the next 5 yrs

I keep hearing that properties are in the biggest bubble yet in the USA - with the affordable housing shortage being a red herring, because real estate managers and boomers are unwilling/unable to reduce their prices - despite not getting renters/buyers because it would kick off a death spiral as their interests would consequently go up (because of lower security). Along with the ai layoffs etc

I'm not American so I only hear the occasional interview so don't have any idea if it's really as pressing as these industry professionals keep saying but I'm definitely at the edge of my seat watching...