I disagree. Maybe you are right about a single family house out in an area where you are unlikely to find renters, but the situation is completely different if you are buying houses as an investment to create income generating rental properties out of them.

Lets say you buy a two family unit for 250k in a decent area that you know you can rent the units for 1500 each. suddenly your 250k investment is throwing off 36k in income, minus obviously taxes and mortgage ect, but if this idea didn't work, then you wouldn't have any landlords or real estate tycoons out there.

and then, as they say . . . life happens. ;)

True if you are purchasing as income property but I believe the OP is looking at it for a primary residence. When you purchase as a primary residence, appreciation over time (or even the option to rent if you relocate) is a side benefit of ownership-not the reason for the purchase.

I always used a simple formula.

When you rent you never even get to own the keys to the places over the years. A lot of us older fellows on site started off on a shoestring. So you are far from the first. Back in the day I hit five banks before getting money for a second morgage. Getting money today is far easier in comparison.

If the older guys were to ask themselves what their situation would be today had they not purchased a home. Most would state far worse in my opinion.

Even if you were to lose the place and that is not all too likely you are in no worse situation than if you remained renting. The majority do not lose there homes either.

I am not positive home prices will rise in real dollar value in the short to medium term but you buy a house to keep and perhaps now is as good a time or better than average as almost anytime. It is also a type of forced savings as well.

It directly effects your retirement down the road is a major consideration as well. Swapping two years pension contributions is a small price for it.

As stated if things get difficult you can even rent it out or resell as long as you do not overpay for what you buy. It in my opinion is now almost impossible to forcast the future accuratly. On the otherhand not doing something will almost always leave you behind in this area.

My real motive is I see no reason you should miss moving snow and cutting the seemingly endess grass growing most of us are stuck with.:D

Rent a house and it extracts income...

If the primary residence costs him $600/mo if he rents out a room, and renting an apartment costs him $1500/mo, then he just gave himself a $900/mo or $10,800/yr raise, basically tax-free. Enough for a nice month of unpaid vacay when if comes down to it.

Not very many Dumbericans can save $10k/yr or can have that kind of dough to throw around.

Check the tax and penalty implications before doing so but.....
If you tap the retirement fund, make dang sure you replenish it asap. Time is your friend when it comes to growth in an investment and the sooner you get those dollars back in there the better.
And, nobody hits their 60th birthday wishing they had less money and a nicer house.

You gonna rent it and live in it? If you buy a house with the idea of renting or reselling, it's an investment vehicle. If you buy a house for you and your family to live in, it's not. Pretty simple.

guess it depends on how you see yourself living there long term. When I was looking around for a house to buy to live in, my critera was that I wanted to be able to transfer it into income property down the line as a later in life or retirement investment. I liked living in the city, but I can see when I start having kids and they get a little older I might want to move out of town. So buying a house I was looking for a 10 year residence type place, that after me living in there, I could keep it and start renting it out.

So as a first time buyer, I deliberately looked at multi family units and settled on a two story two apartment house where I would live on the first story, and rent the second, and when I move, rent the first.

Side benefit to this way was that the second story rent pretty much paid the mortgage.

F**kin' A yeah! If you're single and own a two or three bedroom house, nothing wrong with having roommates who pay the mortgage for you. I own a large studio apt right now, but my next project will be to sell it and buy a 2 or 3 bedroom place either out in Brooklyn or near Columbia University. Use one of the bedrooms as a home office. The other will rent for $8-900/mo, covering at least some of the expenses.

Sounds like good, logical planning.

OP mentioned a significant other. Not sure I'd put mine in the position to cohabitate with tenants.

$900/mo extra in pocket can buy a lot of "ladies of the night." Who needs a significant other then? A warm moist hole is always replaceable. :) If she doesn't like it, she's free to go fawk off.

I agree in general but home aquisition is somewhat a conversion of the dollars. He cannot be too far in the pension plan at two years. It may present more upside than downside.

For me it is hard to call the shots on the future currently. Or harder than any period of my life so far when it comes to the general north american economy.

If the states in general although still in denial in my opinion. The country is following Canada in some ways. You either want to be fairly well off or fairly poor as you get older. The middle ground seems dangerous from my perspective. The system has ways engineered in it now to somewhat level the field.


Owning your own house is a net positive in the future senario I believe.

It is in my opinion that the states have entered into a somewhat hybred socialistic system as well. They do not tend to go away either once they exist. I am not even sure of what percentage of americans are really aware or totally understand what has happened.

Outright home ownership is or can be a help in retiring early or reducing the effort required on the treadmill as we age. A safety buffer if you will.

Did Aklim hack your account?;)