Home Owners Thread

[exitspeed]

Originally Posted by LEG1T

I normally agree with your posts, but here I strongly disagree with what you and Silver are saying.

We understand that rent is like a test drive and it's great for people that want that freedom and flexibility, and that's fine. However going back to my original point you can't say that renting and is financially more responsible or is a good business decision to one that can "afford to buy a home" because that is just not so. Looking at owning a home as an investment vehicle on the other hand is one thing. Most of us understand that nothing is guaranteed but paying rent is essentially paying someone else's bill except you have nothing to show for it in the end. Think about it. Yes you can move around and relocate, but you can you leverage your expenses and potentially make $$? Can you remodel, Can you sell? No, most cases no and definitely no. What exactly do you have in the end, your freedom, ok got it.

Also your notion of owning a home as being a security blanket for kids is very single sided and quite frankly just isn't so. There are many people here that still even in today's market flip coin on buying and selling or buying and renting properties for other "investment" purposes. There's a great term here that's huge among business owners, called "It takes money to make money" think about the landlord you're paying your rent check too and get back to me on all those ppl that are using homes as security blankets.

Put quite simply if you make a decision and it is within your means of affordability, the smarter thing to do is leverage what you have in attempt to have more. You can't sell what you don't own and that's the bottom line.

Risky lending has caused the housing industry to fail! Looking forward, If you can afford it after looking at your budgets/income/career, I would 100% say go out and get a house while you can. Now if your lifestyle says the latter, than by all means give that money to the landlord, the person most likely using you as his means to more.

Agree with you. There isn't a financial advisor out there that will tell you renting is financially smarter then owning. People have their own reasons to buy or rent but if you can buy it is smarter.

The same goes for buying vs leasing a car. In the case of a vehicle it made more sense to me to lease with the particular car I own now.