Comment by Retric
3 days ago
Owning an apartment isn’t materially different than renting an apartment here. It’s sometimes better as many apartments have free or rentable spaces available for parties as a selling point, but rarely can you use that space late in the evening.
Owning a home in an HOA area can drastically cut down on what kinds of parties you can host.
To some extent but there are differences. You have housing stability, a fixed price going forward, the ability to renovate most of the internals, and the ability to affix things to the walls without worrying about marks when you have to move out.
I don’t disagree, my comments was about the logistics of throwing a party.
Well… mostly fixed price. Property taxes go up every single year, and are now the largest single payment I make every year.
This is a detail conveniently left out by home owners justifying their purchase, especially if they overpaid and have a higher interest rate on their mortgage on top of it. With a mortgage, the amount you pay is the expected floor you'll encounter, whereas with rent, the amount you pay is the maximum you'll deal with, at least for the duration of the lease agreement.
Renting honestly can be a better deal, especially if you have the discipline to stick excess money in the market consistently. In fact, your returns are likely better than just using a house as a forced savings account. In my neck of the woods, we have seen rental inversion too.
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a fixed price going forward
Property taxes, HOA fees, maintenance, appliances randomly breaking and resulting in bills of thousands of dollars...
the ability to affix things to the walls without worrying about marks when you have to move out
If you care about the sale price you will worry about that, among many other things.