personal finance: don’t buy a home
March 21, 2007 by Cash
Urban Monarch’s current crew is ripe with renters. I for one am quite happy with the wide world of leasing, but contributor, friend, and diabolical comment alterer Greg has begun considering alternatives.
Meanwhile, the mad fiscal scientists over at Bargaineering have some surprising arguments in favor of keeping a landlord on your monthly payroll.
One benefit? Flexibility.
When you rent, you can pick up and move almost whenever you want, with very little penalty (perhaps an early termination fee of some kind); when you own, selling a home can take a very very long time. You lose a lot of flexibility when you “put down your roots” and this is one the biggest reasons why you shouldn’t buy. When you want to look for a new job, you’re restricted to looking in the geographic area around your home. If you ever get a job offer in another area, you have to go through the headache of selling your home before you can take advantage of it. If you rented, you could just end your lease, rent a moving truck (avoid U-Hauls!), and just go.
Read the whole list at Bargaineering
Hell yeah. One of the earliest myths I learned about personal finance was that buying a home was the smartest thing to do with your money.
I like this use of words…
“a new washer and dryer is on the hot side of a thousand bucks”
The hot side of a thousand bucks? Hahaha. Look for those words coming out of my mouth soon.
when you finance a house the ledger looks like this:
Bank owns the house Asset: $200,000.00
Bank is owed, from you (at 6% and 30years) $431,676.38
Bank Credit Balance: $631,676.38
You gain: Debt of $431,676.38
,and a house in 30 years if you don’t miss too many payments.
indeed shorter term Real Estate transactions can be an investment, but housing is certainly an expense.
oh if your looking for a good mortgage calculator try this one (i built it)
https://www.bankcherokee.com/en/mortgage/calculator.aspx
Nice calculator. Who knew you were such a geek?
Thanks, it’s my job. Today i totally got Dugg for my photo hobby though: http://lactose.blogspot.com/2007/03/hobo-diy-softbox-for-perfect-portraits.html
It’s my job too, shhhhh… Don’t tell anyone…