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Comment by jamil7 | Hacker News Reader

I've looked at this a bunch of times, from a pure return perspective, yeah equities usually win. But there's enough benefits to homeownership outside of that lens that I think either side can make a pretty compelling argument (I say this as someone who rents). It also highly depends on which market we're talking about.

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The main thing is to look at it BOTH from a financial standpoint AND from a lifestyle choice, etc.

Too many people are too quick to dismiss renting because of the “conventional wisdom” - or think that only small apartments can be rented.

On the other hand, owning comes with comforts that can be hard to put dollar amounts on, for some.

yes - I often think about what I would do if I "won the lottery" or similarly got a significant amount of cash. Even though I have a low mortgage rate (refied in the middle of COVID), I'd probably still pay off my house. I know it makes absolutely no rational economic sense, but not having a mortgage payment and knowing that I own my house would give me a piece of mind that as you say is hard to put a dollar amount on.

I know there are people out there that like maximize returns with leverage and all of that - and the math all makes sense! - but I'd prefer the simplicity of not dealing with it.

Timing is huge part of it .. the real estate market goes in long term cycles, and if you buy at a good time you may do well over 10+ year timeframe, but if you buy at the peak then it may take that long just to break even if you sell (just in terms of house price, forgetting taxes/etc, and real-estate fees - 5-10% of price !).

Then of course you have all the expenses of home ownership, starting with real estate taxes ($20K/yr by me), maintenance (incl. costly items such as roof replacement), etc.

Deliberately investing in real estate, where you can choose the city/market, type of dwelling, need for renovation, etc, may have a higher chance of being profitable, although even there obviously buying at bottom vs top of the market makes a big difference. For people just buying a house to live in, conventional wisdom is not to expect it to be financially preferable (all told) than renting, even if sometimes - depending on timing - it may turn out to be.

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