Own vs Renting

[Hooked]

Your property tax is 10k in the Bay Area, so that meant you paid around 800k - 900k for your house? I sincerely doubt that they would be moving illegals and refugees into that a neighborhood of that price range. The cost of housing them would be astronomical.

I didn't pay that much but they keep raising the property value, and it increases my property tax after they do assessment's. Its a scam in my opinion because they never lower the property taxes.

[Rasulis]

I didn't pay that much but they keep raising the property value, and it increases my property tax after they do assessment's. Its a scam in my opinion because they never lower the property taxes.

It shouldn't go up because of Prop 13. I bought my condo next to Mission Bay for 60k in 1990. Now it is over 800k, and I am still paying under 2k a year in property tax. The fixed charge assessment for the school district, fire/paramedic, etc. is bigger than the actual property tax.

The same with our current house. We were able to transfer the tax rate from our old house because my wife is over 55 when we sold our old house. We pay around 3,692.36 on a property that's assessed for 1.2M. The actual property tax is 2,600, the extra 1,000 is for community college, mosquito surveillance, vector disease control, fire/paramedic, water standby charge, water availability, etc. Yes, I am actually reading my tax bill.

I love Prop 13.

[Hooked]

It shouldn't go up because of Prop 13. I bought my condo next to Mission Bay for 60k in 1990. Now it is over 800k, and I am still paying under 2k a year in property tax. The fixed charge assessment for the school district, fire/paramedic, etc. is bigger than the actual property tax.

The same with our current house. We were able to transfer the tax rate from our old house because my wife is over 55 when we sold our old house. We pay around 3,692.36 on a property that's assessed for 1.2M. The actual property tax is 2,600, the extra 1,000 is for community college, mosquito surveillance, vector disease control, fire/paramedic, water standby charge, water availability, etc. Yes, I am actually reading my tax bill.

I love Prop 13.

I didn't know about prop 13, maybe its the local bond measure or something. I need to look into why the taxes are so high I guess. I live near walnut creek.

[Xargoth6634]

I plan to own when I can afford it, which probably won't be anytime soon.

[Immitis]

Do you Own or Rent and of the two which of the two do you prefer.

I prefer to Own, and I prefer to be where others own also. I started early so my house is paid for, but honestly, I am glad I did, saying up and putting my first 10% into the biggest purchase I have ever made in my life, growing up poor as fuck.

Owning something seem to give me more of an appreciation for not just where I lived but everything else around where I live.

im not buyin shit

[Elim Garak]

Yeah, Adam hits the nail. Inb4 owners in denial.

[Elim Garak]

No wonder you'd agree with him. You're entirely dismissing the exact same point he also does. But you know, I shouldn't argue. It's people like you that will pay my mortgage and bolster my pension in a few years.

No dude. We are not talking about business here. If you want to be a landlord - of course you need to OWN (even though it's not requried you can rent what you rent)
We are talking about what's better for living. Owning or Renting. As in you buy a house to live in, not to rent out. So no, no one will pay your mortgage but you.

[Elim Garak]

Joke's on you. I'll own, live in AND rent out all in one and the same house. Neat huh?

At the same time? So you gonna live with strangers under same roof? Nice.

[Dasffion]

Nothing compared to costs of buying my own place and then paying for stuff. Just electricity for the house my brother has costs about 144$ per month, I pay like 20$ in rental apartment. Then he has to pay for heating too, which costs an additional 180-240$. Then he has to pay for water and garbage pickup, which costs like 50$ per month too and if he breaks something, he has to cover it himself, a new washing machine? That costs a lot. My rent? 500$ per month.

His monthly costs just for heating, water and garbage pickup, electricity? 430$ BUT, this is a big BUT, he had to pay 180k$ for his house, which meant he had to take a loan. I haven't even gotten close to paying that in total rent yet. He's in debt for quite some time ahead, I'm not in debt. He pays 200$ per month on the debt. His living arrangements costs more than mine does per month and he doesn't get any replacement from a landlord if something breaks, he has to pay that himself. It will take like 30 years for my rent to cost the same as his house cost to buy. He changed the roof like 2 years ago too, cost of that for him out of his own pocket? 7000$.

When you leave your apartment you get nothing except, possibly, a security deposit back. When I sell my house I'm looking to get at LEAST 100k of cash (after paying off my mortgage). Yes, I've put a lot of money into it but not much more than i would have put into an apartment. Most of the time buying is the much better option.

[Elim Garak]

Most people that rent do the exact same thing... (And it's actually my sister that will occupy the second appartment, so not exactly strangers. But I'll have it set up in a way that I could house strangers there and have little to do with them - just in case.)

Renting is better in this case. When you rent you don't have to share your house with some other people. Also disrespect for having your own sister to pay rent. Another point in favor of renting no landlord/tenant relations between close relatives.

[Dasffion]

I didn't pay that much but they keep raising the property value, and it increases my property tax after they do assessment's. Its a scam in my opinion because they never lower the property taxes.

I'm not sure what the rules are where you live but here (Travis County Texas) you can contest assessed values and keep it from changing.

[Ghostpanther]

I'm not sure what the rules are where you live but here (Travis County Texas) you can contest assessed values and keep it from changing.

You can in Ohio also. But the odds of successfully having it rule in your favor, are slim.

[Tinykong]

Not the mortgage payment, no.

You can write off the mortgage interest, which for the majority of people does a lot of nothing to their tax return. I want to say my mortgage interest bumped my tax return by about $50 at the most. I just remember it was pretty laughable when I saw the difference after entering it. Now, people with $500,000 homes? They probably see a sizeable difference writing off mortgage interest.

However, you do get to write off property taxes and THAT is a nice big boost.

Mortgage interest deduction is great in the early years when most of your payment is interest.

SALT deductions are probably going away soon, so most people will probably wind up having to use the standard deduction.

[Elim Garak]

She wants to pay rent. If I robbed her of the pride of being able to make her own living - THEN you can disrespect me mate. Also: Who says I don't want to live close to my sister (whom I have a very buddy-like relationship with)? (In fact, we've been living door-to-door for the last 10 years already. It's a proven concept.)

But tell me, how would renting benefit me? I have some cash saved up (~1/5 to 1/4 of what I intend to invest in a house) and the prospect of less pension than what social security grants to the long-term unemployed here. Should I leave my money at the bank and rot away from inflation? Should I invest into a highly speculative and shaky stock market with the potential to loose a large portion of it? Life insurance - at a rate lower or barely equal to inflation? And all the while feeding some owner's family and living in a place where I have to basically ask permission for every larger screw in the walls, and no prospect of having an asset that is worth more than I bought it for afterwards? With a house I could even think about renting a small appartment when I'm old and financing this through renting out my old house. As a last resort.

Watch Adam's video, he explains what you get by renting compared to mortgage. And if your sister wants to pay rent then it's ok, I retract my disrespect. But now you cannot claim that she will pay your mortgage. You are both will be paying mortgage for the house you will be both living in. it's the same as if it was you alone, you just pooled resources with your sis. You could as easily have rented.

The only way it's better to own is if you want to run a business.

[Elim Garak]

I watched Adam's video and it a) didn't apply to me mostly (not American, for starters) and b) he also entirely left out the notion of actually owning an asset of quite some value ultimately - the thing you also keep ignoring. Also: Our combined mortgage payments will be (a lot) less than the rent we would pay for the same space in the same area. Sure, recurring costs add to that, and in the end we might end up having spent similar amounts to having rented the whole time, but from the moment all is paid off, I'll have ~400k€ (rough projection) worth of house to do with as I please. What will you have when you're 55 or so?

He covers that. He says that for the next 30 years you won't be building equity, you will be paying interest. And even if you get lucky and your house will be worth 400k when you are 55. Whatcha gonna do with it? You will LIVE IN IT. So it's not really 400k. It's just you can get 400k if you sell it. But a new house will cost even MORE, at that time. And that's if you are lucky and there would be no housing bubble 2.0.

Is it really so good to know that it costs 400k but not being able to cash in because you kinda need it as a house? When you checkout in this life your possessions becomes other's people possessions.

What Adam and I are saying is, you anchor yourself to a specific place for ~30 years, you pay as much money as renting for 30 years, and you end up with less money in your bank account (which you also could've put into work you know) than if you rented and moved around for better jobs.

So what I will have at 55? More money than you, which I will be able to SPEND, hell maybe I will even BUY a house at full price, at 55 I wouldn't really need a job - so a relatively cheap area will do in some quite town and I will have enough money left to live till the bitter end.

[Skandulous]

yeah, you guys pay way to much for homes. The average new home here is 175-225k for 3 bedroom homes and... Zillow is a joke.

I could buy a house for the same amount of monthly payment, yes. But I dont like being tied down or forced to pay 14-20k for a new roof every 7-10 years, or new AC every 5 years. Down here its hot and ACs run 22 out of 24 hours, heater, nah we dont need those.

So I guess it depends on where you live.

im in Florida and my insurance pays for all that. Like i figured you could pay the same or less to own your house instead of renting. Most roofs last 20 yrs if done right and my AC is 12 yrs old still runs fine.

[loadedaxe]

im in Florida and my insurance pays for all that. Like i figured you could pay the same or less to own your house instead of renting. Most roofs last 20 yrs if done right and my AC is 12 yrs old still runs fine.

Insurance does not pay for maintenance. Misleading them to pay for your roof by an act of god is a crime. You do know that right?