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Comment by curun1r | Hacker News Reader

Why is home ownership important? It’s a serious question. It’s currently important within the context of houses as a form of appreciating wealth that can be passed on to future generations, but a big part of the reason we have a housing crisis is due to conflating housing and investment.

We need to step back from the notion that houses should be significant stores of wealth and concentrate fully on creating enough housing so that everyone can comfortably afford a roof over their head. Using the scarcity of housing to build wealth is just short-sighted and will always lead housing shortages because the housing value above construction cost is only maintained by way of scarcity. If there’s enough housing for everybody, which should be our goal, home values will go down and the importance of owning a house goes away.

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I agree with everything except that the importance of ownership would go away. There is a lot you can't do while renting, things that would improve your day to day life in ways you prefer. You can also just be moved on at any point, say the house sells or the landlord changes heart. Of course there are protections but renting is never as stable as ownership. It's a necessarily transient arrangement.

You can be invested in your home in more than just a financial sense. If you don't own it, you have no incentive (or even much ability) to improve it. The owner who doesn't live in it is also incentivized to do the bare minimum to keep it rentable. If you you're going to live somewhere long term, it's nice to own your surroundings so that you can improve them for yourself, and to have neighbors that are similarly motivated and incentivized. Society works better when everyone's self-interests are aligned.

There are two parts to buy house. One is hedge for rising rents. You pay the same mortgage and then don’t pay anything. Decades ago and still in unpopular areas, house prices rose with inflation and weren’t really investment.

Two is investment. Land prices in popular areas started rising because of demand. Housing turned into way to make money and build wealth. But it is really land speculation.

There's a perception of "renter mentality" being synonymous with indifference and lack of personal investment into the neighborhoods. E.g. ownership communities tend to have cleaner streets, less crime and fewer annoyances (like loud parties or improper parking) due to owners acting upon such infractions faster.

I.d argue it is confusing long and short term investments. If you will live in the same place for at least 40 years a house is a great investment because you live there rent free after it is paid off. This only works if you pay it off, and continue to live there.

Wow, it’s pretty simple. Owning a home means you don’t pay rent. You pay a mortgage and in such a case you earn equity. When you pay rent, your money is gone every month. You may pay it off and then live without paying the mortgage but just up-keep and property taxes or you may sell the house even before mortgage is paid off and possibly even earn a profit but certainly recoup much of your mortgage payments at the least. Your point about it just being about passing wealth to future generations seems to indicate you are just seeing home ownership through some extreme leftist lens. You may not even choose pass on anything and it is still financially beneficial. Why is earning an income important? That’s a “serious” question too. You say we “conflate” housing and investment, housing is investment, we don’t have to conflate these things, they are intrinsically intertwined because we live in a world in which scarcity exists, despite what the left might tell you. The rest of what you are saying is just very naive.

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