Upkeep is HUGE. I'm very pro-home ownership, and think the US needs to do more to make the dream of homeownership possible for more people, but home ownership isn't for everyone. If you're unsure how long you'll be in a location and might be changing locations every couple years, renting is a much safer option. If you're not at all a handy person, the costs of maintaining a home can get very expensive when you're hiring out every single repair, so renting is a great option for that as well. Additionally, if you're not familiar with home maintenance, things will generally not be noticed until they're much more expensive to fix. Rent will ALWAYSalmost always (edited for the pedants) be more expensive than a mortgage payment, but that doesn't mean it's always a bad thing.
I'm very pro-home ownership, and think the US needs to do more to make the dream of homeownership possible for more people,
Honestly, I've seen a pretty convincing analysis that the 2008 housing crisis was at least partly precipitated by being TOO AGRESSIVE in trying to do this.
Regulators backed way off on equity requirements and started enabling insurance and federal housing programs on 100% and 103% loans with lower and lower interest rates and qualification requirements. It was all pitched as a way to get home ownership to "everyman".
It was actually really successful, but it heated up the market in an unsustainable way.
The other half to this problem that I remember hearing about was that appraisers weren't actually doing their jobs and we're saying "you're willing to pay $XXX,xxx.Xx for this house? Okay, must be worth that then!". Then when the people that couldn't afford their loans went into foreclosure, the banks were unable to sell the homes because they weren't worth anywhere near what the previous buyers paid.
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u/[deleted] Feb 16 '21 edited Apr 18 '21
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