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Comment by throwvirtever | Hacker News Reader

I don't quite understand the obsession with homeownership.

If a large enough percentage of people rented from property management companies, there would be more impetus to have strong tenant's rights laws to protect residents, and people would have more flexibility to move around. Moreover everyone would have an interest in increasing supply to keep their own rent down, pushing prices down toward cost-of-materials and upkeep.

As it is people willingly submit to homeowners associations that are in many ways worse than the laziest landlord. I don't see what gets worse by just becoming a nation of renters.

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It seems pretty simple, I can spend money to rent a place, and after 30 years (rent), have nothing to show for the money I put in, or I can buy a house (mortgage), spend money for 30 years, and then have an asset I own.

Not to mention the freedom to do whatever you want to your home / house without having to ask for permission, or being in a position of putting money into an asset that you don't own.

I think people who parrot this line try to ignore the total cost of their mortgage being quite different from the purchase price of their home, property taxes, repairs, etc.

As a lifelong renter, I’ve done quite well by keeping my rent low (my preference is studio/1-bedrooms in relatively dense urban areas) and putting extra money into the market.

30 years from when I started renting, I’ll have quite a lot to show for it!

Housing is an expense to me, not an investment.

Well studio/1-bedroom isn't really an option for families, and rates go up quickly after that point.

It can be both, but in US real estate historically was seen as a good way to park money. I will venture to say that you are an outlier. I remember renting with my SO. The jumps in rent were getting onerous to the point, when it became cheaper for us to actually buy a place.

But again, each situation varies. Before living with my now wife just like you I lived in a small apartment, because that was all I really needed at the time ( and it was very budget friendly ).

Yes, as long as you start with a modest home that you can actually afford, it can work. The mortgage payment, including taxes and insurance, on my first home (a small 2-br bungalow) was hundreds of dollars less (monthly) than the 1-br shithole apartment I was renting (shithole because I was trying to save for a down payment). At that point, as long as home values do what they normally do, you can upsize every 5 years or so if needed until you are in a home that really fits, rolling the equity gain in the former house into a larger down payment on the newer house.

Mistakes people make: starting with too big a house where they are in trouble immediately if they miss a paycheck. Refinancing and taking equity out to spend on other "things" that depreciate or are consumables like boats, new cars, extravagant vacations, expensive furniture, etc.

Yeah this entirely. I had a 600 sq ft shoe box in a high-rise in a major city center for $1800/mo. My mortgage a mile and a half away on a 3000 sq ft house is $2000/mo.

I don’t even use half the rooms in my house and it’s still a way better deal. And no less convenient as I still have everything I really need within a 3-4 block radius. And my mortgage will only get cheaper over time — especially if we get a ton of inflation.

Screw the apartment. You could save so much money living out of a van.

I honestly don't understand this line of thinking. "Why do people even want [tangible good]?"

If an explanation is really needed: it's nice to have a large, private space. People like cars in garages, a room for their work, a room to cook, a room to relax, a room to sleep, a room to store stuff, etc. Why do people bother with any of these things? Why isn't everyone a minimalist? Why do people even bother living?

It's bizarre and alien to me. It also misses the point that people are supposedly free to pursue happiness.

I think this argument gets confused because some people refer to it as an investment/asset while others refer to it in emotional terms as a means to pursue happiness. They aren’t always the same thing.

For most people it's both. There's a reason home ownership is often a component of "the American Dream".

Owning land and a house is a huge step in status and financial security. Owning a house is also a huge luxury. It's strange to deny either of these realities. Some people don't want luxuries, okay, but it should be clear that nearly everyone does.

Recognizing it is one thing, but thinking it’s a good “investment” is another. Often funding/chasing status is a fools errand IMO.

Part of the problem is that homes being the largest asset that a person owns because they’re chasing the status of that American Dream. Can you think of any other illiquid asset that people would suggest piling a majority of your net worth into?

There is no other asset I can own that alleviates the financial burden of burning nearly half of my take-home pay in perpetuity to fund some rich landlord's beach vacations.

But it doesn't remove that financial burden entirely (or even close to entirely). You're still paying:

* opportunity cost

* property taxes

* interest

You're paying many of these things in a rental as well. But at the end of 30 years the landlord keeps the asset.

I was living in a place in SF that would have cost me 3x to purchase versus my rent. I could take the leftover and invest in other assets. I'm actually ahead of where I would be had I owned since condos have dropped in SF with Covid.

If someone is well-off enough to be in a position to choose, renting is essentially paying a premium for freedom of movement. Used smartly, this can be an avenue to dramatically increase earnings over time because in today’s economy switching jobs is one of the faster ways to increase wages. While previous generations may not have had that problem, I think it changes the own/rent calculus for younger people.

If you’re spending that large of a percentage on housing you’re already running against most prudent financial advice and probably shouldn’t be thinking of housing as an investment asset

I live in the real world, not the fantasy one they haves think exist.

I understand where you're coming from though. You wouldn't want social mobility to become the norm.

You may want to revisit the HN guidelines.

With that aside, I absolutely do want to foster social mobility. I actually think it’s still possible but probably not in the dream-world way many people think where it comes completely on their own terms. In most cases, it involves avoiding a few basic things like substance abuse, onerous debt, living outside ones means, and having kids before one is financially stable.

But that often flies in the face of what people emotionally want or are told to pursue, so sometimes people want to go into massive debt for depreciating assets or to go to college because that’s what “everyone” does, or to live in an expensive, trendy area because it’s cool or they think that’s where they need to be to chase status. Barring those types of mistakes, social mobility (towards the upper middle class level at least) is generally available. I’m willing to bet many people on HN are already close to that status even if it doesn’t feel like it because they’re comparing themselves to economic outliers rather than the average citizen.

> Owning a house is also a huge luxury. It's strange to deny either of these realities.

I'll happily deny this reality. Owning a home is a huge luxury to some, but it is also a huge burden to some.

It is kinda wrong to see your primary residence as an investment. You can't sell it unless you find a different place to live.

I don’t disagree, but that’s the reality of many Americans. Their home is their largest asset by type. This is also why home ownership is one of the largest drivers of wealth.

Maybe it shouldn’t be.

It's an asset but not an investment.

It's factored in your net worth (i.e. your wealth) but it's not something you can leverage like the rest of your wealth.

Note that if you're a homeowner, and the overall market goes up, you don't benefit from it at all. Your wealth goes up on paper, but it doesn't change anything in your life except it will be more expensive if you want to move.

I completely understand the distinction, but it’s not entirely different from other assets for the typical American. The two largest wealth assets are their homes and 401k/pensions. Both those groups have a lot of friction before their gains can be realized.

And many people do downsize as they get older, meaning it’s less expensive to move events if their home value increased. Unfortunately, many people (just skim this thread) assume home values always go up so they consider them an investment.

You're doing the same thing though. The whole argument against apartment living is that nobody can imagine that anyone would want to live this way, "Why do people not want [tangible good]?"

The argument against apartment living is the lack of choice in the matter. More people are living in apartments now than before and it isn't because of preference.

This is conflating ownership with single families homes etc. The core issue here is renting vs owning, not flat vs SFH.

This is a reasonable take but the government really does everything in its power to put its finger on the scale toward homeownership:

- up to $500,000 in tax-free capital gains for couples

- cheap leverage via low interest rates courtesy of the Fed and further subsidized by renters via mortgage interest deduction

- SALT deduction (albeit reduced as of 2017)

You also have government guaranteed mortgages. This is probably the most unusual aspect of the American home market in comparison to other markets...it is essentially publicly owned (the only place that has a similar structure is Denmark, and even then there is no Freddie Mac/Fannie Mac...just a large secondary market for resi mortgages) and makes mortgages very cheap with little rate risk (I am in UK, 30yr fixed mortgages are unheard of, the most you can get is 5yr fixed and it costs 200bps more than a 30yr fixed in the US).

Just a broader comment: the main financial argument against home ownership is really the size of the deposit. If you are paying 25% down (this is now standard where I am in the UK, we went from 120% mortgages to 75% mortgages in the last ten years...and house prices kept rising, so the upfront cost of housing is way way way up) then it may be close for some people. But you add in the security, the potential for capital growth...it is attractive financially (and I wouldn't say this is true in the UK, downpayments are too high, mortgage rates are too expensive and come with massive interest rate risk...it isn't worth it on a pure financial basis).

I can't see myself every buying a house because I just don't like having a lot of stuff, it tends to worry/distract me. But I think it is unfortunate that housing has become associated with this "I got mine" mentality. Germany is a nation of renters, it has led to levels of wealth inequality higher than the US because all that value from rising property prices has gone into the pockets of a few large corporations (the median net financial wealth of a German citizen is EUR20k, about the same as Greece...and they have one of the highest per capita rates of billionaires). Maybe we can tax rising property values more efficiently but the US model (essentially, publicly guaranteed mortgages) works quite well too.

Habito One do longer fixed rates here in the UK.

For 20% down:

21–25 years: 3.84%

26–30 years: 3.94%

But yes, I agree that at current house prices (8-10x median local income) both the deposit size and the rates at prohibitive

> Housing is an expense to me, not an investment.

I wish more people (in the US, especially) would think of housing in this way. I think we'd have much more sane housing markets just with that change, even without fixing a lot of the other structural problems we have around housing.

Ya, you saved because you are living single, and _assuming_ you have no kids as you live in 1 BR.

Rest of the population have family's, and have to care where and how their children grow up.

Precisely. People really underestimate the costs of home ownership.

You need to include everything like: 1) mortgage interest, 2) property taxes, 3) insurance, 4) maintenance, 5) opportunity cost of down payment, 6) transaction costs buying and selling.

Clearly if you see major appreciation in the value of your house you'll clearly come out ahead of renting, but I've been in two situations (one while renting, one while owning) where I would have come out ahead renting. In one case the home values went up 20%, but the stock market went up 50% and adjusting for transaction costs, I made more money continuing to rent than buy.

Most homes are bought with 5x or more leverage. In a year where the stock market is up 50% and houses up 20%, recent homeowners probably did better than renters, not worse.

You just proved my point. Yes, the return is higher, but subtract all the costs and the stock market is ahead.

If you buy and sell the house every year, perhaps. Most renters don’t even move every year.

Of course that leverage works against you if the market tanks.

People just believe that this is impossible in the property market

> You need to include everything like: 1) mortgage interest, 2) property taxes, 3) insurance, 4) maintenance, 5) opportunity cost of down payment, 6) transaction costs buying and selling.

Factor 1 to 4 are all included (with additional profit margin on top) in rent so you're always paying for those regardless. As an owner at least you don't pay the extra profit margin on it to the landlord.

On #6, if you're moving very frequently then yes, you're better off renting. If you want to settle down, buy.

So realistically that only leaves #5 as a consideration. In the short haul it favors the renter but over a lifetime, not so much.

No, #1-4 isn’t factored into rent. Plenty of condos for rent in Toronto that are cash flow negative each month.

Buying and renting are separate markets. Just because housing prices go up doesn’t mean rent does as well.

It's not that simple. Right now the interest portion of my mortgage, plus my property taxes, plus my HOA dues, not to mention maintenance and upkeep, is more than what I was paying in rent right before I bought my house. That money is "thrown away" in the same sense as rent is; only money going toward mortgage principal gives me something to show for it. It absolutely would have been more economical to rent than buy. But I wanted to buy (see: your totally valid argument about having the freedom to do whatever I want to my home), and was lucky enough to be able to afford it, so I did it.

Sure, you can make the argument that I can hopefully expect some capital gains down the road if/when I sell the place. But that's not guaranteed (consider all the people underwater on their mortgages, for example, after the 2008 financial crisis; I wouldn't be at all surprised if something like that happens again during my lifetime), and it may well be that putting that money in the stock market would net me better returns over time.

But it really just depends on your local housing market. In some places it makes more financial sense to rent (rent < interest+taxes+upkeep), and in some places to buy (rent > interest+taxes+upkeep). And sometimes the financials aren't the #1 driver of the decision, anyway.

Interest is amortized in most mortgages so that this type of analysis on year 0 of homeownership is always going to look very unfavorable owing to the large interest payments in the early years of the mortgage. You have to consider what happens over the life of a 15 or 30 year mortgage to understand the financial benefits of ownership. As the years go by, you will be paying a larger fraction toward principal while inflation has shrunken the real cost of your debt and it feels cheaper to you over time.

If your wages keep up with inflation (say 3% for example), in 10 years you'll be making about 35% more dollars but your housing payment stays the same. If your home value tracks inflation, it will also be up 35% after a decade, but your payment stays the same. And if you're lucky, there may have also been appreciation above inflation. Inflation melts your fixed rate debt and grows the nominal value of your asset, speeding the rate at which you build wealth in the form of home equity.

Over that same period, a renter is certain to have experienced significant increases in their housing costs. They may have saved and invested more than the homeowner over the first few years of homeownership, but as you know this is a long-term game.

I guess it comes down to what form of risk/investing you are most comfortable with and whether you value the intangible lifestyle things like getting to customize things to your liking. Getting to purchase an asset with between 5-33x leverage in the form of low fixed rate debt seems like a pretty unique opportunity for most people who would not be comfortable borrowing for other forms of investment.

It's not simple, it's a calculation to do but at the end of the day the calculation gives you a number of years you need to live in your house to make buying worthwhile.

If you sell your house 2 years after buying it, unless the prices really skyrocketted during that time you should have rented instead.

If you stay 30 years in your house however it's financially much better to buy rather than renting.

Of course there are non-financial aspects (freedom of modification for homeowner, easier to move out for renters) but the financial equation boils down to how long you stay in the same house. Exactly where is the cut-off depends where and when you live.

With rent, it's a guaranteed loss, with a mortgage on a property there's a high possibility of a return of investment, in addition to a return on investment.

This is what most people get wrong about home ownership. Mortgage and rent are two different, unrelated things.

Rent is part of the value of a property. If you live in it, you're essentially paying its opportunity cost. That in itself has nothing to do if you borrowed money against it or not.

The only way to not pay rent is to make someone else pay for you (eg live with someone else that doesn't charge you)

Yes, they're different things. However you need a place to live so unless you already own a paid off house, you can choose between paying a rent or paying a mortgage.

It's the bigger part of your "housing costs" in both cases.

Yeah I know. The point is the comparison is not really mortgage vs rent. From a purely financial perspective you're paying mortgage + owning costs + rent opportunity cost + liquidity risk.

If you can pay a mortgage most likely you can pay a rent, and it's going to be way cheaper if you factor everything in. And in both cases you can be evicted if you don't pay anyway.

Mortgage on your home residence also acts as life insurance. If tomorrow I die, my mortgage will be 100% reimbursed by the mortgage insurance. This was a motivation to buy in my case, to protect my kids.

You're paying for that regardless of whether it's attached to a mortgage payment

Money aside, there's a big difference in lifestyle (some might say quality of life) of homeowners vs renters. There's a lot you can do in a property you own yourself that you simply cannot do in a rental. It's hard to put a price on being able to customize things exactly to your liking. For example I recently had 20 year old thermostat replaced with a Nest thermostat that gives me a lot more flexibility and efficiency in how I heat my home; I never would have made that type of change in a rental. I can paint whatever I want without permission from the landlord. Ditto for having pets.

And greater housing security in old age is very appealing. That people will need a place to live even after they stop working is something even the financially illiterate can understand and plan for with home ownership. For my parents who are retired on a fixed income, having a paid off home is the difference between a comfortable enough retirement lifestyle and being stressed a landlord is going to claim an even greater share of their meager income with every passing year. As owners they still have exposure to property tax increases, but that's modest compared to escalating market rents.

Did you know that landlords in a few states don't need to give you notice to show up and enter your home?

> And greater housing security in old age is very appealing

This can't be overstated. It's one thing to keep up with ever-rising rents as a young professional, but do you want to compete in that market as an older retired person on a fixed income? Or have a paid-off house?

I have rented my entire life. I just bought my first 'home' which is a condo (with a reasonable HOA). I bought it with savings and no debt. I feel lucky.

I can't tell you how nice it is to not have to worry about rent. How nice it is to feel like if I want to change something about my home, I can and I'm not just improving someone else's capex. How nice it feels to know that I can travel and leave the place empty for a year without worrying about subletting it.

You seem jaded.

It makes financing anything else a breeze.

It makes you more money than you earn. Imagine if when you paid rent you got a cheque for twice what you paid in rent. I’m $12,000 in “rent” on my current place and it’s returned $123K, I moved in in May didn’t start paying rent til July.

When you’re done with it you can rent it and have someone else buy it for you.

The market might return slightly higher but with leverage (mortgages) the returns are unbeatable.

In Canada selling your primary residence is exempt from cap gains.

When you combine all of these factors with modern zoning and rent control laws you basically can’t lose money.

If you buy presale by the time the unit is built it rents for more than the mortgage.

1) Renters are a captive audience. If you have kids in a school, I can raise rents until I hit your utility cost of moving, which can be high.

2) Home owners are more likely to maintain homes well (and efficiently).

3) We have a nesting instinct. I'm more likely to customize my own home. One I rent is a throw-away.

> Home owners are more likely to maintain homes well (and efficiently).

That property owners aren’t willing to maintain property well if they don’t live there is not an indictment of the renters, but of the property owners. The renters pay the property owners to do this very job.

> If you have kids in a school, I can raise rents

This is evil predatory landlord behavior. Plz don’t do this.

There's something to be said for privacy, and owning your own slice of the universe to do (mostly) whatever you want with. Not to mention a nice asset and something to pass along to family.

I live in Denver. My monthly housing costs of a fully owned home is $600 a month. The house next to me, very similar, is renting for $2400 a month. Do the math.

Then you don't have an asset. You paid for the option of living there for the duration of your leas, but you have no control on the property, or your future.

a house isn’t a particularly good investment. it’s just the one everyone, in america, makes because they’re financially illiterate. anyone can buy ETFs now with zero commission and zero gate keeping.

It’s money you have to spend (shelter is non-optional), and mortgage is definitely a better investment than renting (you’ll get at least some of it back on selling, unless it dips very far) whereas rent is guaranteed to be burnt.

And the difference between rent and mortgage as a monthly payment isn’t that far for same-lifestyle, assuming you can put up the standard up-front capital requirements.

As far as I can tell, it’s quite reasonable.

interest payments from the mortgage can be directly compared with rent, but not the principle repayment portion of the mortgage.

> assuming you can put up the standard up-front capital requirements.

which is also a cost - just more difficult to imagine as a cost. This cost is called the cost of capital, and is non-zero. If you take the minimum return, which is the risk-free rate from buying treasuries, this can be considered your cost of capital for this upfront deposit. More, if you consider this capital could be invested in the markets for some risk.

It isn't always clear cut which wins out, mortgage or renting. For the past few decades, mortgages have been winning out due to declining interest rates, but that might not last.

> interest payments from the mortgage can be directly compared with rent, but not the principle repayment portion of the mortgage.

You keep saying this but my mortgage payment for the past six years has been 0. And when I had a mortgage the payment always was comparable with the rent I was paying on a 2 bedroom apartment before buying the house. That apartment would never accommodate my family of four.

If renting works for you that's great, keep renting. But don't pretend it's because it is somehow cheaper than owning - it's not.

> And the difference between rent and mortgage as a monthly payment isn’t that far for same-lifestyle

That doesn't seem to be true in the Bay Area which has a very high buy/rent ratio because everyone expects housing here to be a great investment. The property tax alone on a townhouse can be higher than the rent on a similar apartment.

And property tax, mortgage interest, HOA fees/utilities like garbage and water, are pure expenses like rent, not investments.

Anecdotally, I live in the bay area and bought a house 4 years ago in a very desirable location, and my mortgage + property tax is cheaper than the equivalent rent would be.

> And property tax, mortgage interest, HOA fees/utilities like garbage and water, are pure expenses like rent, not investments.

You're paying for all of that when renting as well, so not a differentiator.

It is a differentiator if those things would add up to more than rent. In that case renting is literally saving money that you can e.g. put into the stock market instead of real estate.

It may or may not be but rent is an even worse investment.

Life is not all about money or investment. Sometimes it's about stability - owning a home lets you plan for the future in ways that nothing else allows for. It puts you out of reach of all sorts of predatory folks and companies.

That, itself is an investment. Stability is an investment. Forecasting is speculation and risk, and stability is to mitigate risk and that is an investment opportunity (or not.)

Believing people are stupid for owning their homes is a rather interesting opinion, especially with the implication that putting the same money in the stock market instead is smarter. It certainly seems higher risk and potentially more lucrative as a result, but you can't live in an ETF. As someone with both a mortgage and ETFs, I've been pleased with the return on both over the years.

illiterate in finance is ignorance, not stupidity.

This discounts the power of investing on margin because loans are easily available to people. And it makes sense, because people are more likely to pay back a loan on their home then on a stock.

Or, maybe you're right and everyone but you is dumb.

> anyone can buy ETFs now

If you're ok with living in a homeless encampment and putting the money into ETFs, sure.

Otherwise, you still need to rent so might as well buy.

Unlike paying renting, paying a mortgage is nice because you're paying for something that is eventually going to be yours.

rent is often lower, or the same, as the interest payments. The mortgage consists of both interest and principle payments, which is higher, but the principle payments can be considered equity, so it cannot be compared with rent.

Rent is easily comparable to a mortgage, my old rent is $3750, my new “rent” including property taxes is $3040.

> I’m $750 a month up on rent and I’m $123,000 up on equity since May. That’s $123,000 in completely tax free income if I sell.

All of HN is really happy for you. You're the man! So smart, and handsome too!

Also, keep in mind rents only ever go up (barring a major economy crash) and mortgages only ever go down or stay same.

Long time ago when I was renting, my rent (Silicon Valley) was $1200. I bought a very similarly-sized house and my monthly costs went up to ~$3000. So it hurt for a little while.

In just a couple years I had refinanced down to a sub-$2000 mortgage and the rent on my previous place was up to $1500. Getting close to even already.

Couple decades later, rent over there is up around $5000 and my mortgage has been refinanced down to $800.

By the time I'm retired my mortgage will be $0 and rents might be $8000 or more, let's see what future inflations brings.

My advice to anyone early in their career, just buy a home as soon as you can. It'll hurt initially for a few years but you'll set yourself up for a lifetime of being better off than renting.

The rental income my wife and I get from our little rental house very nearly covers our principle + interest, so I think it's quite comparable.

Yep I hit this recently. Over the lifetime of my hypothetical mortgage I would be paying $500/mo more than my rent just in interest. Bleh. Assuming my salary keeps up with inflation this actually becomes a great deal after roughly 15 years (maybe less if my house appreciates in real value) compared to renting buttttt…

- I lose the ability to quickly scale down my life if something bad happens to me financially before my 30 years are up.

- I’m not really tied to a specific location and right now my career prospects are better if I’m mobile.

- I’m not excited to have to basically stop putting money into the market and into a single asset.

I can pay less for a mortgage but for worse living arrangements. If that was an acceptable trade I could just find a cheaper place to rent.

My P&I, taxes, and insurance is less than what I paid for rent a few years ago. I get twice the square footage inside, private spaces outdoors, can make any modifications I want.

Meanwhile rents in the area increased 10% while my monthly went down due to refinancing. Taxes are only a small amount monthly overall so even if that doubled (it won't at least anytime soon) it wouldn't be as much of a change as the rental market.

Quite often the landlord will just be paying off an equivalent mortgage, and price the rent as the mortgage payments + maintenance + profit. In areas where living space is in demand and people are building or buying units that were not rentals to rent them out, the rent will be strictly higher than the mortgage including the equity-building principal part.

The argument for home ownership in a nutshell: if you're spending 40% of your take home pay now on rent, and your pension will pay a fraction of what you earn now, say 40% again, how the fuck will you ever be able to retire?

Home ownership is a sensible part of retirement planning

The quality on homeownership can be several orders of magnitude higher than renting. Every time I have owned the appliances are much better, hardware is better, etc. If you are buying from previous homeowners they often have better maintained properties since someone had to live there longer than a year.

Also moving sucks, when your landlord wants to sell you have zero say and a timeline.

Homeownership gives you way more control over your life. Control comes with responsibilities, sure.

Not equity building, lack of control, and sometimes the "incentives" are off. For example a landlord wants the cheapest possible appliances. A renter wants features, quality and efficiency.. Also having no agency in the layout or functionality of the home is going to lead us all into misery. I don't understand how people think this is remotely OK.

Some people don't like subscriptions...still prefer the old good way of owning things.

The classic HaaS model. Great lifestyle business. Easy to get debt financing at rock bottom low interest rates from VCs.

It’s completely no code, just post your place on Craigslist.

Because I can buy a house today and lock in my housing for the next 30 years at today’s price..

Besides, when you live in a place, you don’t want it falling to shit. A landlord is never going to care about your quality of life the way you do.

Sometimes you want to modify the property, renting precludes that

I'm not even 30 and have a strong desire for RO water and an EV. Nope, that is for a higher echelon of society.

If you’re already paying for the electricity and are willing to pay your landlord to have an electrician to install a 14-50R outlet in the parking area, I’d imagine most landlords would take that deal. That’s a cost that you’d pay even as a homeowner.

Plenty of people own EVs without owning a house. I own a house, but still almost always charged at work before COVID. As in “I’d plug in at home maybe 2x per year in total, because we mostly use street parking.”

Likewise, there are portable/countertop RO systems that can usually be installed with no permanent mods to the building.

Given a strong desire for those two things, they seem achievable.

It is absurd to pay to increase the value of a property I don't own and will not live in after a few years. Should I just spend this money every time I move?

My work doesn't have EV chargers and I'd need 20 hours of slow charging a day to make up for my commute. Relying on superchargers is reasonable though.

I had not heard of portable RO systems before. I'm definitely hopping on that. Cheers.

If I added a 14-50R to my house, its value would increase by maybe $100 versus the same house without that outlet. (It could very likely be exactly $0.)

Have you approached them with an offer to increase the rent you pay by $25/month if the landlord is willing to fit an outlet that you can plug a charger into? Or by $40/mo if they’re willing to put a 40A capable fast charger in so you don’t have to buy anything but can just use the service you want?

Just as you don’t want to spend money for something that you care about using for a couple years but someone else might also later get benefit from, the landlord doesn’t want to spend that same amount of money for something that they don’t even care about at all.

Depends on the lease, but generally you're correct for residential rentals.

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