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Pay mortgage on home vs renting a nice apartment

J

jinduy

Diamond Member
let's say you pay a cheaper amount paying rent for an apartment, but it's a very nice and spacious apartment with amenities including free use of laundry room and a nice pool.

for your dream house, you would be paying mortgage for a long time (for most of us at least)

which would you rather do?
 
House. Think about it. At the end of the twenty year term, the house is yours. After twenty years of paying rent on an appartment, it's still not yours.

Same with leasing a car.
 
Originally posted by: MrCodeDude
House. Think about it. At the end of the twenty year term, the house is yours. After twenty years of paying rent on an appartment, it's still not yours.

Same with leasing a car.
Click to expand...

its not the same with a car, the car depreciates over time, the house appreciates over time.
 
house, of course. minus interest on your loan, the money you pay for your house is essentially money you're putting in a savings account. you can always sell the house and get that money back (barring a huge market drop, obviously). and eventually you pay it off and live there for just maintenance and taxes. plus, houses generally appreciate, so your investment will make a return that, in many cases, more than cancels out the interest on your loan. lastly, who the hell would want to live in apartment when they could live in a house? with a house you get less noise from neighbors, better security, no parking hassles, no inspections or management to deal with, etc, etc.

you do accept some risk with home ownership, but honestly, i'd be hard pressed to think of any type of investment with lower risk than real estate, and it can have great returns, too.
 
the only reason why u should rent vs buying a house is if you will be in the area temporarily..

if u buy a house, u should be there at least 3 years... otherwise it will be a major PITA to take care of the mortage, and to sell it, etc etc (also prepayment penalty is a beotch too)

 
I wouldn't rent.
Paying the bank every month and having your own place is much better than paying someone every month and not having a place to call your own.
 
Originally posted by: Ameesh
Originally posted by: MrCodeDude
House. Think about it. At the end of the twenty year term, the house is yours. After twenty years of paying rent on an appartment, it's still not yours.

Same with leasing a car.
Click to expand...

its not the same with a car, the car depreciates over time, the house appreciates over time.
Click to expand...

true, but even so, it has been shown time and time again that leasing a car is a poorer financial decision than buying (pardon the pun).
 
Originally posted by: z0mb13
the only reason why u should rent vs buying a house is if you will be in the area temporarily..

if u buy a house, u should be there at least 3 years... otherwise it will be a major PITA to take care of the mortage, and to sell it, etc etc (also prepayment penalty is a beotch too)
Click to expand...

good point. also, i understand you get taxed pretty heavily on any gains if you don't occupy the house for at least 2 years. although money - taxes is still better than no money at all.
 
I'd take the house in an instant if I could afford it. Even if it was more expensive and not as nice as the apartment.
 
house is going to win out by far.

but IMO, it depends on the person. I can't stand to live in one place for more than a year or two. for me, a house is obviously the wrong answer 🙂
 
dunno, any not ghetto property in the LA area is atleast 400K. Property tax on 400K is ~$500 a month. Don't mention insurance and maintenance. You can rent a decent apartment for ~1K.

I used to be very bullish about buying a house but at some point, property values are so ridiculous that it makes more sense to rent than to own.
 
Buy the house. Not only are you building equity from escalating real estate values, the mortague interest is tax deductable.....and that interest deduction is what allows most people to get into the multiple deduction category on their income taxes instead of having to use the standard deduction.

Once you get into being able to list deductions (doing that only makes sense if you can beat the standard deduction and with the mortague interest deduction, one usually can), then you get into deducting medical expenses, continuing education expenses, travel expenses for work not repaid by the job, local and state ad valorem taxes paid on things like your car, state income tax for the prior year, etc.

Home ownership ends up being the number one savings vehicle most people have.....far outweighing 401Ks or anything else. Probably the best investment anyone can make..........while the stock markets go up and down, most real estate just goes up in value.
 
I would buy, but I might go back to school in the next couple of years and I like the flexibility of renting🙂
 
Originally posted by: jinduy
let's say you pay a cheaper amount paying rent for an apartment, but it's a very nice and spacious apartment with amenities including free use of laundry room and a nice pool.

for your dream house, you would be paying mortgage for a long time (for most of us at least)

which would you rather do?
Click to expand...

1) you have to choose what you want...you have building equity which is the main reason to own. If you want to be mobile and carefree on maintenance renting is better.

2) then you have to decide if it's cost-effective. I pay $500 a month for a nice apartment, a comparable apartment here is about $1000-1200 for what I have...I pay no water either. In this scenario, moving to a home will not save me anything...however, space is more important for me. My net difference from this place to a mortgage is only about $300-500 additional per month for over 4x the space.
 
Originally posted by: jinduy
let's say you pay a cheaper amount paying rent for an apartment, but it's a very nice and spacious apartment with amenities including free use of laundry room and a nice pool.

for your dream house, you would be paying mortgage for a long time (for most of us at least)

which would you rather do?
Click to expand...

You do pay mortage payments for a long time but...they will end some day,rent goes on forever. There's also the argument that you pay interest and upkeep on a home and not on an apartment. True...but its actually built into the rent on the apartment so its basically a wash.

We refinanced last December for the last time on our mortage. In late 2006 I'll take the LAST mortage payment over to the bank and it'll be ours. The value on our house by then should be around 150K,if we would have rented we'd own a big box or reciepts. We bought this house new in 1982,honestly you think you'll never see the end of the tunnel but it'll happen one day. I rented several places,everyone does, but you need to save some money and buy a house one day.

 
House if you can realistically afford it. It is no fun to have it repossesed and lose all the money and time you put into it.
 
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