It’s been a decade since I paid off my mortgage. So I’ve kept track of my expenses (tax, two plumber visits, two HVAC visits, air filter replacement, etc. Those expenses have averaged out to me paying only $250 a month on average for the last ten years (no mortgage payment anymore). To be fair, I did spend a lot I’m not counting on solar panels, because a landlord would never have bothered (tenant pays the electric bill, so no incentive to help the tenant reduce that). Even when I had a mortgage, the figure was like 1500 a month.
Meanwhile, a couple of identical houses in this neighborhood are listed on Zillow for rent for $3000 a month. When I bought I’m sure rent would have been 1.5k a month, but the rent goes up over time and a decent mortgage will not.
I never understood this “never ending expenses” stuff. Over the last 25 years, between renting and owning I can recall only a handful of expenses, and half of them were elective that a landlord would either not let me do or at least made me pay for it.
I think it’s the arrogance of thinking that your experience is the norm. A great deal of people who rent have shitty landlords who will only do the very bare minimum of maintenance and only begrudgingly at that. And most people who have a house with a mortgage have much lower expense than those who rent. Mostly due to the fact that mortgages stay the same over the time you are paying them and then they go away once you’ve paid them off and (unless you are lucky enough to be rent controlled) rent usually continually goes up yearly or bi-yearly.
It’s been a decade since I paid off my mortgage. So I’ve kept track of my expenses (tax, two plumber visits, two HVAC visits, air filter replacement, etc. Those expenses have averaged out to me paying only $250 a month on average for the last ten years (no mortgage payment anymore). To be fair, I did spend a lot I’m not counting on solar panels, because a landlord would never have bothered (tenant pays the electric bill, so no incentive to help the tenant reduce that). Even when I had a mortgage, the figure was like 1500 a month.
Meanwhile, a couple of identical houses in this neighborhood are listed on Zillow for rent for $3000 a month. When I bought I’m sure rent would have been 1.5k a month, but the rent goes up over time and a decent mortgage will not.
I never understood this “never ending expenses” stuff. Over the last 25 years, between renting and owning I can recall only a handful of expenses, and half of them were elective that a landlord would either not let me do or at least made me pay for it.
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I think it’s the arrogance of thinking that your experience is the norm. A great deal of people who rent have shitty landlords who will only do the very bare minimum of maintenance and only begrudgingly at that. And most people who have a house with a mortgage have much lower expense than those who rent. Mostly due to the fact that mortgages stay the same over the time you are paying them and then they go away once you’ve paid them off and (unless you are lucky enough to be rent controlled) rent usually continually goes up yearly or bi-yearly.
deleted by creator