Hacker News Reader

Comment by UncleOxidant | Hacker News Reader

They say that the reason owning is terrible is because it's not as flexible as renting - you can't easily move to where work is. But I'm not sure that's as big of a problem in a covid/post covid world where WFH has become common. Also, I don't think that a society that is rootless is all that great of an outcome - people who own are more invested in their communities and will be more likely to get involved in improving them.

I'm glad I bought 11 years ago. My house is easily worth 2X what I paid then. If I'd been renting all this time I'd be paying at least 2X in rent compared to what my mortgage is. And I'd be subject to the whims of owners who decide to sell and make the renters move.

View on HN

It's way too early to draw any conclusions about the "post covid" world considering we aren't in it yet. My personal opinion is that it is going to be a lot closer to the pre covid world than people think.

> If I'd been renting all this time I'd be paying at least 2X in rent compared to what my mortgage is

This is generally not the case. Rents on a property take a long time to catch up to the mortgage payment. Of course market conditions vary by location, but I suspect if a lot of homeowners ran the numbers (total mortgage + interest, closing costs, taxes and property maintenance compared to incremental annual rent, difference invested in S&P 500 or something riskier), the conclusion would be different.

Yeah... I'm renting a two bedroom apartment in the middle of a nice area for $1200 a month (with rent costs split with my partner). All utilities (water, trash, electricity) are included in that cost, and they have a full time staff that maintains the grounds.

This means I'm living in a nice area for only $600 a month.

If I wanted to live in a home in the same area, that $600 wouldn't even cover the interest on the mortgage, much less all the other costs that come with living in a home.

In the mean time, I have been saving thousands of dollars every month and investing it. Over the past couple of years, I managed to completely pay off over $50,000 worth of debt and also saved up around $140,000 (most of which is invested in stock market index funds).

If I want to move to another state to pursue other job opportunities, I can do that whenever I want at the drop of the hat. All it would cost me to terminate my lease early is two month's worth of rent.

So yeah... pros and cons. I'm still not convinced that buying a house is worth it over renting.

Strange, I have never seen an apartment that includes electricity.

In my city (maybe state?), the landlord must pay the electric bill in a multi-tenant building if the electricity isn’t split into submeters and separate panels. I’ve seen duplexes where the owner didn’t bother to split the electrical service and they had to pay the electric bill (aka include it in the rent)

It's fairly common in Arizona. A number of the apartment complexes use centralized water heating/cooling that is piped through all the apartments and is used for the HVAC system. They usually flip the HVAC to heating mode during the winter, and cooling mode during the summer.

It's a lot more cost-effective than having a different HVAC system in every single unit. This is especially true in Arizona, where it's not uncommon to hit temperatures of 110-120f in the summer.

The downside is that if you have a hot day in the winter time (which isn't uncommon in AZ), you are out of luck because your HVAC is stuck in heating mode until March rolls around. Another downside is that the air conditioner will often struggle to cool things down to lower than 80 degrees during the summer time.

I make do by supplementing the main A/C with a 10,000 BTU portable window-vented A/C, though... Which is free to use because electricity is included. So it all works out.

> This is generally not the case. Rents on a property take a long time to catch up to the mortgage payment.

Over the last 10 years, though, I think this has been a pretty common occurrence in a lot of areas. My mortgage + property tax is right around $1k/month - admittedly I bought near the housing market bottom. Rent on similar properties in my location is getting close to $2k/month. My mortgage will be paid off in about 2 years (15 year mortgage with some extra principal payments)

What about all the other maintenance costs? Have you paid nothing else other than your mortgage and tax for those 10 years?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com