Buying a house as an investment is so dumb.
Its only an investment if you are renting it out to someone else, otherwise you are just gambling.
Its only an investment if you are renting it out to someone else, otherwise you are just gambling.
You have evidence from the future?
Where's your evidence global temperatures won't plummet 20 degrees tomorrow and reverse climate change?
Past observations inform future predictions.
The fact that there was Black Wednesday, 9/11, the dot com crash, the Iraq War, a once in a century global financial crisis, Brexit, and a global pandemic… suggests it wasn’t an “ok period” for markets. Yet, somehow, over the period of a mortgage, they all went up.
The idea that humans won’t adapt to whatever happens in the next 30 years is ludicrous. There will be short term market instability, just like the events I noted from the previous 30 years, but planning for the apocalypse is mind numbingly stupid.
If the apocalypse happens, everyone is in the same boat. If it doesn’t and you didn’t get on the housing ladder early, well, you’ll probably be buying a more expensive house in the future.
I’m saying this as someone who waited far too long to get on the ladder when I saw how rapidly prices were ascending in the 2000s (leading up the the GFC). I used the exact language lots of people in this thread are using about prices coming down eventually. But I was wrong.
Post the crash I couldn’t buy because deposit demands doubled. It took me out of the market for a long time. Ultimately costing me more when I did buy.
The future always seems risky, it’s the nature of the beast.
Easily 30-50% of the money you pay in rent is immediately burned in tax/letting agent fees that don’t happen to a homeowner who “is their own landlord”. Additionally there’s no capital gains tax on one’s primary home.
Even if house prices stay flat it’s usually still better to own if rental yields in your area are higher than 5%.