But the calculation was that since the local market and job market for me are amazingly hot right now, it'd transfer my variable costs into fixed costs and be a cash transaction.
I rented until just recently (mostly 1 year or less, over 10 years -- lots of different places in the greater Boston area), and although I ran the numbers to make sure I wouldn't be doing anything too stupid, in the end it just came down to "I want to own my own home"
My spouse and I have done a ton of work on it, don't mind the maintenance issues, and we still get a kick out of just pointing to things and saying "that's ours!" (Okay, well... it's most the bank's. But still.)
I think "I'm sick of renting someone else's house" is a very non-negligible factor that's not often brought up in cost/benefit analyses like these.
Yep. But I still bought anyways, even though houses are what I consider "bad investments" if looking at them in the abstract:
* high transaction costs * illiquid * concentrated * requires maintenance ...
But the calculation was that since the local market and job market for me are amazingly hot right now, it'd transfer my variable costs into fixed costs and be a cash transaction.
Still worth it in some cases.