| ▲ | notnaut 3 hours ago | |
I understand it’s more complicated than this, but it seems really really confusing at a basic level. In one situation you are paying someone else for a place to live, and when you stop doing that after 30 years, you’re out on the street. In the other situation you are paying someone else for a place to live, and when you stop doing that after 30 years, you have a house. | ||
| ▲ | jandrewrogers 2 hours ago | parent [-] | |
Renting gives you a giant pile of additional money you can save and invest so that after 30 years you could buy a house in cash if you wanted to. The person with the house does not have this cash, they have a house instead. After 30 years you either have a house or enough cash to buy that house. In many cases, the rate of return on the cash is sufficiently greater that it is significantly more than the value of that house. | ||