> Many readers either have that cash in their bank account or the ability to get help from (extremely) generous parents.
LOL
Absent something extraordinary, watch out when rates rise. Affordability will be crushed quickly, and absent rising incomes, prices will have to fall.
One could argue we'll see a Japan-style era of low rates, but in your article you're urging folks to "Buy now before it's too late!". If rates spike suddenly, this will be a very, very bad time to be long such a levered investment.
Is $3k/mo a good price to pay for a place to live? To answer that question you would need to know the alternatives:
* how much does it cost to rent the same apartment? * if you have $100,000 on hand, what is the ROI of other investments you could make?
Whether buying your home is a good idea is much more involved than a short blog post and always comes down to individual circumstances.
That said, I received helped from my parents for the down payment and couldn't be happier of the move to mortgage over rental.
But if I own I either need to sell or rent out my unit, both of which are expensive up-front and dependent on future market conditions, at a time where I am likely at a cash-flow low point in my personal finances. Even if it's good in the long-run, conditions may not be good at the moment I need to move.
It's possible that the upside of ownership is strong enough to be worth it anyway, but the risk and reward would have to be quantified a little better for me to want to take the jump.
tl;dr: Just because buying housing is a good investment for Wall Street doesn't mean I should buy myself a place to live in.
