Renting could never compare to owning, as Equity is the biggest source of wealth for the middle class in the US. Not owning equity to pass on to your kids is one of the worst mistakes you can make. IF you can afford that sort of thing.
How have we screwed up as a society, much less species, when shelter is seen as a financial investment rather than what it is, a thing we literally need to survive?
Equity is pointless when your $30,000 roof and $20,000 HVAC break at the same time and you’re taking out a 20 year home equity loan to replace them. (And good luck with the $70,000 windows.)
I don’t know about that - I had my roof replaced (by insurance thankfully) about a year ago, and it was ~26k. HVAC out of pocket a couple years ago was about 15k. Not fun!
The article talks a lot about mortgages. How does the math work if you pay in full at the time of purchase?
Renting could never compare to owning, as Equity is the biggest source of wealth for the middle class in the US. Not owning equity to pass on to your kids is one of the worst mistakes you can make. IF you can afford that sort of thing.
How have we screwed up as a society, much less species, when shelter is seen as a financial investment rather than what it is, a thing we literally need to survive?
Well, as houses don’t magically appear out of thin air, I guess it has been like this since we started building permanent shelter.
Equity is pointless when your $30,000 roof and $20,000 HVAC break at the same time and you’re taking out a 20 year home equity loan to replace them. (And good luck with the $70,000 windows.)
2-4x reality, but yeah…
I don’t know about that - I had my roof replaced (by insurance thankfully) about a year ago, and it was ~26k. HVAC out of pocket a couple years ago was about 15k. Not fun!
It depends on how big your house is.
I paid $10k for a 4 ton 15 SEER AC this summer (this depends on location I suppose). I paid $13k for a normal roof replacement last year.
1600 sqft house.