Fellow home owners, are you ready for the housing market to crash?
I know I'm supposed to want it to keep going up as a wealth generator or whatever.
But like... I wouldn't be able to afford the monthly payments if I bought my house right now and it's scary. Also none of my friends are buying homes, none of them are even renting full places. Just like renting rooms.
When you buy a house, you're essentially locking in your housing costs, which can be especially advantageous if you have a fixed-rate mortgage. Rent, on the other hand, can increase over time. My monthly mortgage payment for a house is already several hundreds less than what my friends are paying for their tiny rental apartments. In about 17 years, my house will be paid off, and then I'll only have maintenance and utility bills remaining, while my friends will still be paying rent, which probably has increased by quite a lot by that time. I don't need to sell my house to benefit from investing into it.
This exactly. The 2 things that affect my fixed rate mortgage are property tax, and homeowners insurance. Even those don't affect the payment much in either direction.
No, that's just being frugal. Not spending money on something is not investing. Grocery example would be buying in bulk; you pay more for something upfront because it's going to be cheaper on the long run.