About a year after I moved back to my childhood hometown, following my divorce, the big question I was being asked by nearly everyone I knew was, “When are you going to buy a home and stop renting?”
I’d already gone down the homeownership route and decided it wasn’t for me. And there’s a good reason for that: I found homeownership expensive and not worth it.
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Homeownership Is Less Affordable for Young People
There’s been much hand-wringing over the fact that many millennials still aren’t buying homes. Part of the problem, though, is that many young people can’t afford to buy a home. In England, a recent study from the Institute for Fiscal Studies found that 40 percent of young adults can’t afford to buy a cheap home in their locality, even with a 10 percent deposit.
Those findings tally well with what’s happening here in the United States, too. Earlier this year, Trulia reported that it costs up to 41.2 percent of income to buy a starter home. On top of that, compared to six years ago, starter home prices are 57.9 percent higher, even while the square footage has shrunk.
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According to Zillow, the median cost to buy a home as of Aug. 31, 2018, is $216,700. Even if you only put 10 percent down instead of 20 percent, you’re looking at coming up with $21,670. And that’s with trying to make student loan payments and dealing with the fact that real wages have been mostly stagnant for decades.
Why I Love Renting
If it were just a financial issue, though, many millennials could overcome the challenges. We live in a golden age of side hustles and technology that gives us the ability to start businesses and quit our day jobs. I haven’t worked from an actual office in almost 15 years.
So, the reality is that I could buy a house — if I wanted to. But, I don’t want to. Been there, done that. Homeownership came with responsibilities I just didn’t enjoy. Maintaining the yard (something I eventually outsourced), regular maintenance and the prospect of future repairs were all things I didn’t want to deal with.
When you rent, especially if you live in an apartment or condo, all of that is taken care of for you. At my last apartment complex, they even came and changed the furnace filters regularly. For me, convenience is paramount. And I love that when the wind blows down the fence at my current rental, I don’t have to deal with getting it fixed and working with the insurance. That’s my landlord’s responsibility.