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You know what's worse than homes when it comes to investments? Kids! They don't give you any return on investment at all until possibly late in life, depending on your culture and relationship (better hope they stay near you) and they make you a lot less mobile, both in terms of geography and career opportunities. They suck up a lot of your income and they probably shorten your life span due to lost sleep in the early years.

Stay away!

Buying a home is a bad investment, that doesn't mean you shouldn't do it :)

Just don't do it as an investment.

I think a lot of people miss this point. A home isn't an investment. It's a place to live. There are studies I have seen that show that your children do better in school if you have a house vs an apartment. There could be other variables there sure. But the main reason I hear to buy a home is to 'invest in your future'.

Personally, I live in an apartment. I don't want the upkeep costs and time associated with a house. Even if I were to find a place to buy with a mortgage similar to my rent, I would then have upkeep costs on top of that. No thanks. I'll let someone else do all my maintenance, mowing, and snow removal, thank you very much.

Towns that depend on one or a few employers have been a losing bet for home ownership. This has been learned multiple times already. It seems good if you get out before it goes bust, but that's like catching a falling knife (especially if the company is not forthright about its impending doom).

It was not that there was one or few employers. There were many companies, large and small, operating in Calgary, Edmonton, and the rest of Alberta. The problem was that the lion's share of the economy was directly or indirectly related to a single industry: oil and gas. When the price of oil went down, they all suffered.

I think the majority opinion on HN is that unlike other industries like energy, auto manufacturing, agriculture, etc., tech is uniquely immune to downturns. My impression is that most people on HN believe that the tech scene in California is only ever going to get bigger and more lucrative, and with it property prices are always going to go up. Even suggesting that tech and SF bay area might end up like, say Detroit and auto manufacturing industry, would make many to dismiss your point entirely. But as an outsider who does not have a horse in this race, I don't share the same mindset. Only time will tell the truth. But I won't be surprised if the sustained tech boom goes bust at some point during the next half century.

> potentially leading to their bankruptcy

Whoa, you have to go bankrupt to stop paying a mortgage in Canada? In the US, these are (in my experience) secured, non-recourse loans. That means that the bank's final option is to take the house, but if they do that, you owe them nothing else.

> Whoa, you have to go bankrupt to stop paying a mortgage in Canada?

It depends on which province your property is located at. In Alberta and Saskatchewan, mortgages are non-recourse. In the rest of the country they are not. So for the majority of Canadians bankruptcy is the only way to get rid of their mortgage.

Admittedly in the specific example I gave this would not be the case. However to the best of my knowledge, defaulting on a non-recourse mortgage ruins your creditworthiness the same as declaring bankruptcy. Considering how many landlords and employers check your credit report, defaulting on a mortgage could have serious consequences for your livelihood, even if it is non-recourse.

  the bank's final option is to take the house

Sometimes not even that, in states with homestead exemption protections.

Normally the homestead exemption would protect the homestead from creditors other than the mortgage lender. Otherwise, it would be substantially impossible to induce banks to give mortgages.

To chime in, being able to move to smaller or bigger places depending on your family needs, or closer/farther from big cities depending on your priorities of the moment are huge advantages.

Conversely, good luck finding an affordable rental during an oil boom.