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0 pointsrogerrogerr3h ago0 comments

Been thinking about this a lot. Curious what the rational folks of HN would suggest for me. Fact pattern:

- I'm in the 25-30yo range, single male

- Living with parents because I can; there's no friction and I mostly enjoy it. And I'm saving a ton of money.

- Remote senior SWE for a non-FAANG, but still doing around $200k/yr between my W2 and a few other things

- NW somewhere around 400-500k.

I could easily go buy a house, it just seems like... a trap? Home prices are stalled at a little over 7x median household income, a bit above where they were in 2006 [0]. Everyone who tells me to buy property seem less like they have my best interest in mind and more like they're either repeating the cult saying of the last 50 years, or they're invested in a class of bigger fools existing.

I fear the one-two punch of me becoming unemployable (AI is getting _really_ good at even the niche stuff I do) and the market crashing. I'm glad I don't have dependents to worry about; even more glad I don't have a mortgage to service.

If I had to go live on my own, the napkin math I've been doing, even ignoring closing costs and house maintenance costs, is that I can rent a house for cheaper than I can buy a similar house in my area. This is "in the long run"; meaning at the end of 30 years I will have higher net worth having rented than bought, with conservative estimates of market performance and aggressive estimates of rent increases and house value appreciation.

It all just seems nuts. I see people my age working at grocery stores (a good and honorable line of work) who are buying houses and I don't understand how they make ends meet.

Am I stupid?

[0]: https://www.longtermtrends.com/home-price-median-annual-inco...

0 comments

stevenhuang38m ago

If you rent and remain invested in the market, it's a wash. So yes there's nothing wrong with renting. It just tends to not be effective for most people since they lack the self control and discipline to invest in stock equities, since lifestyle creep means they tend to overspend. A mortgage for most people is then a form of forced savings which helps them build equity through rising land values.

0xbadcafebee3h ago

Do you want to buy a house? Do you need to buy a house? If the answer is no to both, then don't buy a house.

rogerrogerrOP1h ago

I want to buy a house, but I do not want to end up crazy underwater on a house. If I thought values would be at-least-stable I probably would buy. Everything just seems so bubbly that it feels like a trap.