There's no "I'm free once I'm a home owner" thing.
I finally signed up to an account to HN to say emphatically that it's the opposite.
Owning a house is a huge responsibility that takes up the vast majority of my time, and it's a millstone around your neck if you ever think about moving somewhere else.
I seem to be an exception, but I have no need to define who I am by my housing, nor do I need the security of owning my own house. I have also lived on three continents, so I appreciate the ability to pull up stakes and move with very little fuss.
What in the world? This doesn't even come remotely close to passing the sniff test. Is your idea of homeownership like, constant remodeling or something?
I do zero hours of maintenance/upkeep per week, just like you with your rental.
Is your landlord now doing 10-20 hours of maintenance/upkeep per week for every apartment? Of course the answer is no.
In Sweden, homeownership vs apartments is quite a large difference.
The other side of keeping up with maintenance - if you don't have time nor want to, hire away. It will eat a significant chunk of change to hire all the professionals your landlord was hiring, the difference being you are hiring yourself versus being dependent on the landlord.
For the DIYer, tools acquisition is definitely a PITA. Hardware stores have a decent selection mostly of what you need, but it would be nice if there were preset of tool maintenance you could order, maybe even save you money over long term buying it all piecemeal.
I'd imagine the real time suck would be for planning/research for it all, if you are used to spending your time coding, playing games, or otherwise amusing yourself, yes for the first couple years you will not have any time for these things as you are acquiring your skillset(s).
But that could be said for going back to school, etc. I think it's pretty valuable to be able to maintain your own dwelling apparatus, personally. It means you'll never be without reasonable shelter, so long as you have some access to raw materials, tools.
Lawn maintenance is maybe one or two hours a week at most, and that is mainly because we like to keep it pretty tidy. Then again, we would have needed to do similar maintenance (in the UK) for a rental if we wanted to keep the same standard for the garden.
Houses like anything else have lifetimes, You don't get to be a 200 year old house without having major maintenance done at least a couple times. Buying a poorly maintained, or constructed, old house is a nightmare, if it's bad enough you've discovered why some houses are condemned.
Modern construction often has a longer lifespan and more readily accessible materials, older houses are a mixed bag - some gems that may last hundreds (thousands?) of years, lots of houses that need major repair. Some in the middle too...
Home ownership is as much a comfort as it is a fantasy. There are true perks, eg, you're mostly in control of the regular costs (rent vs mortgage) but it also has downsides, like... basically any hazard and everything location-related.
PS: I feel weirdly kinda honored that you created your account and replied to my comment. Anyway, I'm just being me ;)
> nothing changes once you own the house
Why? What does this mean and is it actually true? The monthly/yearly cost of owning a house is typically much lower than the mortgage payments. If buying a house in cash, the maintenance usually is low enough to consider lower paying jobs. Needing a high salary might enable remodeling but basic taxes and upkeep are very very different from sale price or the payments to a 30 year loan. In my experience something absolutely changes once you fully own the house.
As a renter, this overhead is baked into your lease. As a homeowner, I can simply tap into home equity to do a major repair at single-digit interest rates over a decade. Something you will never be able to do as a renter.
I mean, yes, if you do things yourself it can be significantly less expensive, but most of the housing stock in the bay area is atrocious - good bones and awful everything else. They were thrown up as quickly as possible in the 50s-70s and so there's always something that needs fixing.
$18k+ a year in taxes...
In the country-side that kind of money gets you a 12 bedroom mansion with a pool and a view...
I do a lot of DIY but there are times when you just want it done and done quickly and professionally. We work for a living and don't really have time to deal with a lot of the DIY incremental aspects that happen until you get very good at any given skill. I just redid one of our bathrooms, but I wasn't going to redo the sewer lines solo let alone mid-week while living in the place.
The problem with HCOL is that even if you own you're burning cash due to the lack of time and very, very high cost of services.
But you DO need a high salary in the first place.
And with that big salary, you will buy a NICE house, which will require a lot of maintenance (house keeping, gardening) and taxes.
I think you’re trying to say that an expensive house is more expensive to maintain than a cheap house. That’s true. But the salary required to buy any given house is higher than the salary required to maintain it, for the most part. I’m sure there are counter examples, but on the whole most people who pay off their mortgage experience a pay raise, effectively, which has been my own experience.