There are entire nations which mostly spend their whole lives renting. Ie where I live - Switzerland, many nordics. Maybe correlation with highest happiness levels in the world is coincidental, maybe its not. Happiness simply comes from other things in life than 'my castle my kingdom'.
I know its a typical US mindset (and far from US only) to have a house on your own, but its still an emotion in same vein what you describe. Mixed with rationale of course since proper social net in US is nearly non-existing, if you fail out with you on the street.
Also a rationale would be about very high chance of good return on such investment so don't take this as some sort of attack. I also own my place (apartment) but took it as a location & social bonds stability point for kids mostly, whether it will earn something compared to inflation is not that important to me, it probably won't or very little. Good bigger apartment close to nature trumps a crappy house in my view but thats personal opinion. Even when owning, its almost impossible to retire here in Switzerland, the costs are prohibitive even on Swiss pensions. Unless you want to live as relatively poor, same money gets you much further almost everywhere else. So that stability is always temporary.
Yeah, "jd," the sibling reply here pretty much summed up my sentiment so I'll just say "ditto" to what they said and add: I wonder if maybe you're being a bit one-sided based on some assumptions about Americans in general. It isn't, as far as I'm concerned, as one-sided as you make it out to be. That's not to say that housing isn't an emotional purchase, it for sure can be and probably almost always partially is, but to say that's the primary reason doesn't reflect my experience here. Unless we're having a semantic disagreement about what financial prudence and practicality means. I just think those two things are decoupled from FOMO for the most part.
> Happiness simply comes from other things in life than 'my castle my kingdom'.
I know its a typical US mindset (and far from US only) to have a house on your own, but its still an emotion
This is a frustratingly uninformed take. You are comparing apples to oranges by equating your decision-making process with that of someone in the US. The drive to own a house in the US is not just mediated by “emotion” - the calculus is fundamentally different than in many nordic countries. For instance, very few places in the US have rent control, which means that renting represents substantial risk of either experiencing a large increase in cost, or being forced to move at irregular intervals. On the other end of the spectrum, the US is one of the only places that offers 30 year mortgages, which means that (taxes and repairs aside) buying a home on credit still offers a high level of predictable cost over the long term.
Also, at least historically, there are very many places in the US for which housing is very affordable, given that the USs overall population density is so much lower than the average European country.
This is of course not to suggest that buying is always a good call - but it is often a logical and financially sound one.
I know its a typical US mindset (and far from US only) to have a house on your own, but its still an emotion in same vein what you describe. Mixed with rationale of course since proper social net in US is nearly non-existing, if you fail out with you on the street.
Also a rationale would be about very high chance of good return on such investment so don't take this as some sort of attack. I also own my place (apartment) but took it as a location & social bonds stability point for kids mostly, whether it will earn something compared to inflation is not that important to me, it probably won't or very little. Good bigger apartment close to nature trumps a crappy house in my view but thats personal opinion. Even when owning, its almost impossible to retire here in Switzerland, the costs are prohibitive even on Swiss pensions. Unless you want to live as relatively poor, same money gets you much further almost everywhere else. So that stability is always temporary.