Comment by pstack | Hacker News Reader

Comment by pstack | Hacker News Reader

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The video was completely void of real content and seemed more created as an attempt to self-justify and rationalize the choice for the author of it to rent, instead of buy a home.

There are different markets, different economies, different lifestyles, and different situations. For some in some places, renting is wiser. For others, owning a home.

I sure delight in knowing that the home I bought in 2010 for $195k with 20% down and a $160k mortgage at 4.85% is not only worth $220k today, but costs me the same about ($1,200) for mortgage, insurance, and property tax as I used to pay just for my rent. And the place is 3,000sqft versus 1,000sqft of the apartment. And I get all the benefits of a home, such as a lawn, storage, nobody pounding on the floor because I'm listening to music, pets, a security system, and nobody else with a key to let themselves in whenever they feel like it.

In addition, that $1,200 I paid in rent started as $1,000 only four years earlier. In twenty years, it'll probably be at least $2,000+ while my mortgage will still be $850 (not counting insurance/tax). And, in the end, I'll have actual property that is worth something.

I see so many of these arguments back and forth and it always sounds more like people trying to convince themselves that they made the right decision than trying to convince someone else what decision to make. It's a lot like parents frustrated by their kids trying to convince other couples that they should have kids. Or a married couple always trying to convince their friends that they should get married.

It all comes down to individual situations and opportunities. Where that guy lives and with his opportunities in that market, his decision very well may be appropriate for him. For others, not so much. And that's okay.

After all, my next step is to buy more property. Real-estate is a dandy way to counter inflation and when I buy a couple more properties, I'm going to need people like the guy who made that video to be willing to pay me rent.

Agree on everything. The point here is that the video should be a source of information while it's not. +1 for the super-realistic analysis which should inspire future readers.

> And I get all the benefits of a home, such as a lawn, storage, nobody pounding on the floor because I'm listening to music, pets, a security system, and nobody else with a key to let themselves in whenever they feel like it.

This is a key point for me, though I'd list different specifics. I've owned a house for ~5 years but was a renter for my previous (post-undergraduate) adult life other than brief periods when I was living with my parents.

The great horror of renting is the typical case of renting in a multi-unit building, and has to do with two things: i) neighbors, and ii) landlord or their agent running the operation. Having neighbors sharing walls, floors and ceilings with you is problematic because the neighbors are inevitably noisy (and in some cases there are other nuisance problems like cigarette smoke leeching in). I'm the guy who pounded on the ceiling who you had to deal with. But I also appreciate your desire to be able to listen to music without having to worry about annoying the neighbors. Neighbors tend to be inconsiderate, and I theorize that this tendency, or the perception of this tendency, has increased, perhaps due to: (a) an influx of young middle class renters who themselves did not grow up as renters but as children in suburban homes, so don't understand the norms of good neighborly behavior; (b) a race to the bottom in apartment building construction leading to poor insulation from noise from other apartments.

Then there's the other part, having to deal with a landlord or property agent. I've found that the rise of the class of mega rental property owning businesses, which I see in growing suburban and exurban areas as well as in cities, is a big problem - essentially slumlord-like unscrupulous behavior has gotten extended to middle-class rental unit property. There also seems often to be high turnover in management of such rental properties which also causes problems. For examples read your average negative Yelp or apartmentratings.com review of rental properties in this category. You'll hear the same types of complaints over and over -- failure to respond to renter complaints, imposition of fees and rental raises at any opportunity, a general culture of treating renters with high disrespect.

Some of these problems seem not to be present to the same degree in multi-unit dwellings that are structured as condominiums or (common in New York) coops. As a kid I lived in a coop in NY for a while and my parents later lived in a coop in Manhattan where my mother still lives. The contrast is significant, even though it shouldn't be overstated (my mom's building is probably higher quality than the average Manhattan coop). You get a different set of people in an ownership-structured multi-unit development -- fewer noisy young people who grew up in suburban houses and are straight out of college, a tendency to have middle-aged or older people, quieter, more considerate, less likely to move and with more of a stake in the maintenance of collective quality. I rented a condo in a multi-unit building in Seattle some years ago after having rented in the sort of rental building I describe above and the difference was notable there, if not dramatic.

When I grumble about aspects of my current situation (basically related to the fact that I'm in an exurb and not an urban setting) I sometimes remind myself of what I used to have to experience as a renter, and it makes me feel a lot better.

[Edited to fix a couple of typos]

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