Is it better to rent a cheap/shitty place, or rent something suitable that you struggle to afford?
I am trying to make a decision. curious about your thoughts on my personal situation, and what you think in general. or your own stories if you have anything relevant...
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Rent a cheap, shitty place
Save the money until you can afford to buy your own home.
Ah, I don't think I will ever be able to afford a house. My income isn't likely to increase by much given my career (80k might be my max, 100k is possible in a decade or two or if I get a PhD). Houses average around 800k. Not to mention the risk of fire, in the region, it doesn't seem like a sound investment for someone at my income.
So for me, my financial goals are about building up retirement fund and being able to afford a better life (my dreams are to pay for fluff/fold laundry because I have ADHD and constantly struggle keeping up, be able to afford to travel without dipping into emergency fund, have my car paid off, be able to afford car repairs without dipping into emergency fund 😭. just basic stability.) I don't plan on having children, and honestly don't particularly care about marriage and prefer a lifestyle of a robust community life.
So what good is a house for me? I have read all the financial advice recommending it but .. that seems to apply more to people with families, or higher incomes where saving to buy a house requires less sacrifice from daily life. It doesn't seem like a good use of my money. Scrimping for twenty years, only to still pay off a mortgage for thirty years, and then die.
Sounds like you're just making excuses for your lack of willpower.
If you're able to pay for rent, you're able to afford paying back a loan.
Imagine building a retirement fund and then pissing it half of it away because you're still renting lmao.
May not be true depending on where OP lives. There are a lot of rent vs buy calculators out there, and home prices are so expensive in some areas that it's actually better financially to rent instead of own, and to invest the difference in payments. For example that's the case where I live in San Francisco - investing the difference between rent payments and mortgage payments nets me more in the long run, even considering housing value appreciation.
Edit: this of course doesn't apply to investment properties, where you get the value of the asset + appreciation, but also get rental payments.
yup SF bay area. buying a house is only a good idea if your parents are funding the down payment.
List of things you can do if houses are too expensive where you live:
Improve your life by moving to a shithole rural area where houses are cheap?
Better than living in a shithole urban area where the cheapest rent is 2/3rds of your income.
Oh no, such a shithole, no one likes it here that's why prices are through the damn roof lol
Cities are expensive because the country sucks balls so anyone with two braincells to rub together moves to the city.
Cities are expensive because idiots would rather dump 2/3rd of their income on rent just to hear the neighbors screaming all day and night through the paper thin walls of their apartment.
Stay miserable.
Sounds like you're the miserable one lol
Have fun driving to the nearest restaurant, which is an Applebee's
I love the implication that there's no junk food restaurants in cities lmao.
I can bike to the nearest restaurant. It's a small Indian mom and pop owned place that sells better food for cheaper price than anything in your city.
Keep begging for your walkable cities, I'm sure one day you'll be able to cross a road without fearing for your life.
Lack of willpower? Lmao where is that even coming from? Sounds like you just wanted to bring up your talking point?
I work a full-time job and am doing very well for my field given my years of experience ... it's just not a high paying job, because I work for an environmental nonprofit and the work itself is important to me. Are you just saying that because my dream is to not do laundry? What is the point of having money if you can't use it to save yourself hours of labor? And a couple hundred dollars a month on laundry would not make or break affording a house, anyway....
I can't pay for a loan until I can afford a down payment. You need money for that.
You are clearly not a serious person, and I will lot be taking any of your advice seriously. You are not willing to seriously engage in the reality of my situation, and would prefer to live in a fantasy land where people are wealthy/poor due to "laziness" and not ... exploitation. Because that is what is happening. I have a moral conscious and am being exploited by the nonprofit-industrial complex, being underpaid to do impactful work during a climate emergency.
edit: also, I'm already 30. by the time I could afford a down payment, I'd already be close to retirement age. Clearly you have never once thought about someone with a different financial situation to your own, and just think you're better than anyone else who doesn't live exactly like you do. Fuck off.
"you are not a serious person", says the guy thinking pissing away their money in rent because they are too lazy to do laundry is a good tradeoff lmao.
You'll be funding someone else's property all your life like a servant just to save 15 minutes of folding clothes every week.
Oh shit, must have forgot that $200/month could buy me a house. Damn. Also don't see where I mentioned that as anything other than an aspirational splurge. Also ... it takes me way longer than 15 min to do laundry, esp because I have ADHD and a hard time keeping track of timing loads, and folding usually takes up to an hour. But I realize you're too fucking dumb to know what a disability is.
Not to mention... what is the point of owning a house I'll be paying my mortgage off on until I die? I'm gonna bring the house to the grave?
You're renting, you can literally grab a truck and move to a cheaper housing market with all your belongings overnight.
If you can pay rent, you can pay a mortgage.
At least the mortgage is benefiting you.
You can't pay a mortgage until you have a down payment ... and even with a down payment...
Do you know what house I could afford for that much in my area? A house in a trailer park where I would still be paying rent.
You're acting all superior but you literally can't handle basic math.
And you're saying I could just move to another area ... I don't want to. As an trans person, I will simply not be leaving. It is very easy to access healthcare and services in my area. And my quality of life would tank even if I wasn't trans ... my job is tied to living where I do, most of my community is here... anywhere I could actually afford would not be a pleasant place to live. But yeah, if you want to own a home in bumfuck Idaho, sure. I won't be, because I think enjoying my life is more important than a deed.
"my quality of life would tank", yet here you are pissing away half your income in rent lmao. Bet you think living in the city is amazing, while chugging 4 bottles if antidepressants a day because the last time your body breathed clean air was 30 years ago and the only tree in your neighborhood is fenced off to prevent homeless people from getting some shade.
Negative IQ all the way down the line. Stay miserable.
I don't even live in a city ... I have lived in rural areas for nearly all of the past decade. But yeah I would love to live in a city at some point in my life. Kinda sucks to be so far from everything, nature is great but I get plenty of exposure to the outdoors at work. I have only been paying this rent for a month as a stopgap looking for something else. It's the most affordable I could find, that was a standalone unit, after a couple months looking. I was really unhappy being so far from my friends living rurally, and now I am slightly less rural but it still feels to remote. I miss being able to walk to things. Also statistically... rural people kill themselves way more 😬
You seem confused and lost. Lashing out completely unrelated and weird insults. Like ... do you live in Idaho?? lol did I hit a nerve? People like living in cities because there is community, culture, services. Weird.
Nice that you seem to have given up trying to tell me that buying a house is a good financial decision for me though like ... you saw the evidence and then went off about antidepressants and air quality lmao
"you seem confused and lost", says the guy who thinks spending half his income into funding someone else's property is a good idea and a great retirement solution.
Also, no, I don't live in Idaho, not everyone is a lazy ass American who thinks improving their life is paying for someone to do the laundry.
You don't even live in the United States and you're trying to act like you know what's best for my financial situation ... I could buy a house ... or not do that and not waste time and money on home ownership upkeep❤️👍🏻 and invest money in other ways 🎉
Owning your own home is an universal good thing for everyone in the entire world
You're wasting money on upkeep regardless.