It's not important for me at all. It's easier for me not to. I'm too much of a nomad to settle in one place.
Important as a milestone, absolutely, as it tells you where you are and how well you manage the need for shelter. However, as a method of gauging self worth, it is meaningless. That particular indicator should come from what you are, what you've become and not what you own.
I've had to come to terms with that fact over the last year & a half as fortunes have definitely suffered reversal. I went from the threshold of finally using my VA perk of financing 100% of the purchase to the other end of the spectrum, approaching homelessness after re-aggravating a prior back injury.
To maintain a proper perspective, I focused on what benefits I gained: Location, which to me meant living as close to work as I could afford to so my commutes wouldn't be arduous. Arranging the place as I saw fit, making a statement or not, so long as it pleased me. Ultimately, it affords a person the ability to live life at ease and with greater options.
It is awesome to be in that situation, but one can create a well ordered, more carefree life without home ownership.
I'm currently picking myself up, dusting myself off, & starting over. What else can I do? If I were to recieve a direct 'NO!' from the almighty, assuming he exists or cares ... I was going to say that I'd acquiesce but I'm full of shit. I'd whine and bitch asking why. Who am I kidding?
That which did not kill me didn't try hard enough
In the places I have resided it has always been less expensive to actually get a mortgage and make the monthly payments than it is to rent. The homes being rented in my neighborhood are priced at least a third higher than what I pay for a mortgage, with principal and interest. And I am earning equity. In the past five years, the price for a virtually exact copy of my place goes for more than a third more now.
Frankly, I would prefer to own an apartment downtown but it's always been out of my price range.
One size doesn't fit all. Goals, lifestyle, income, and how much you like to work on projects, all play a roll. To own a home is to be owned by a home, and that can be as easy as your budget will allow. If you can afford to pay for the repairs and maintenance to be performed by contractors, then it is easy enough. If you are like me and have to do them yourself, they can cut into you "pleasure" time, (no, not that - there is always time for that!) like hang gliding, golfing, skiing the slopes fishing, dancing, you get it.
I do own my own home, a condo, 3 blocks from the beach. Was it important to own it. Well, it was better than renting someone else's place. I can do what I want to it inside. The outside is taken care of by Fees. which are high but I don't have to worry the outside of my place. Rent would have been higher that the payments. Which I don't have anymore.
Its important to me I have $20K left to pay it off and it is now worth 3 times what I paid for it so I am on a mission to pay it off. May sell it or may not happy to just have such a beautiful home but my goal is to move to the Keys so who knows what the future will bring.
Its honestly pretty important
If you rent you have rules and who wants that?
If you have your own house you can do as you please with it
Plus I have 4 cats and I can't imagine what sort of apartment would allow that.
I love my house though I am thinking about selling it in the near future.
Home ownership has its advantages in the right market, but it is becoming an increasingly unreachable goal for young people. In the late 1930s, my great-grandparents bought a nice house in the Detroit suburbs in their mid-twenties. That was when America had a thriving middle-class and a family could subsist on a single earner's income. Damn few Americans in their twenties can afford to buy their own homes anymore. More than likely, they are still paying off student loans in their thirties, and would be hard-pressed to make a down-payment on a house. Actually, more young adults are now moving back in with their parents due to lack of funds. I run a property management company, so renters are my bread and butter. If everyone owned their own homes, I'd be out of a job. Since the Great Recession of 2008, single family homes in America are increasingly being bought by corporate landlords and hedge-funds as investments. Wall Street has figured out that once they have shipped your jobs overseas, automated the remaining jobs, and bought your government, they can keep wages down even in times of high-employment. So the housing market is in the process of becoming commoditized. Home ownership will soon be the province of only the top 10 percentile of the population, and most everyone else will be renters, living with their folks, or in cardboard boxes under freeway overpasses. Welcome to the new America. (Vote progressive!)
I own my own home. Paid off a 30 year mortgage in 11 years by putting everything I could into paying it off. The peace of mind of not having either rent or a mortgage can't be described. I will admit - it was easier for me than most people. Graduated college without any student loans thanks to mom and dad! Have a great job that is reasonably secure which pays well in my eyes. I think my generation (probably those before and after me too) had/have a great deal more choices than my parents did. The "experience" generation will NEVER have enough money to do everything they want to do. My brother laments that he too would pay $millions to go to the moon - if only he had a job or whatever that could get him that much. He was extremely critical of the Japanese billionaire who was willing to pay for the "right" girl to go with him. Thought it was unfair to men who wanted the same experience. (Not sure why he backed of the deal after something like 37,000 applied. Backlash was part of it I'm sure.) Que Serah Serah
Owning my house is pretty important. I could sell the one I own now for three or four times what I paid years ago, but even then I'd be priced out of the local market. It's insane.
The home I spent most of my childhood years living in was recently sold for $1.7 million and then demolished to make way for two "Queen Anne Modern" houses in Seattle. As a child, the neighbourhood was very mixed economically; among my neighbours were a Boeing employee, a U.S. District Attorney (RIP Tom Wales), two King County Superior Court justices, a crabber who spent six to nine months of the year at sea, and our mail carrier.
All are gone now, most because property taxes skyrocketed, and now the neighbourhood is almost purely Amazon money.
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I don't understand the idea of "owning a house as an investment" because it's so completely illiquid. Yeah, I might buy a house for $200k, then halfway through my mortgage it's suddenly "worth" $280k. But that money isn't something I can use unless I sell the house or take out a lien or something. Then I do what? Buy another house for the same value? I'm not seeing how any money is "made" here.
Owning a home is pretty unrealistic for me. I don't know if I'll ever do it. It would make sense to me only if I could expect to pay it off within fifteen years.
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I have been a bit lucky. Despite living in a city, the house prices here are remarkably cheap. I am 46 and I have just paid my mortgage off. No more mortgage or rent payments ever again unless I decide I want to move. I personally don't understand why anyone would want to rent long term, when that means paying rent for the rest of your life, especially the period where you are retired and probably struggling to get by anyway.
It was personally important, but not for status.
I got sick of the conditions in leases. This many pets. You can/can't flush this. Plus it's never REALLY private if someone can just come in with 48 hours notice.
For me, it made financial sense, too. I wasn't pouring money into something that wasn't mine. It's the same reason why I don't lease a car, even though I could have a nicer one leased.
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We hasted renting for the same reasons others have listed - landlord accessing the property, pet issues, painting/updating interior, etc. We decided 40 years ago to buy a house and paid it off in about 10 yers. We moved a lot after that and bought and sold number of homes. Most times we made some money, but once we lost a lot (couldn't sell it fort what we paid and had to keep dropping the price, plus pay the mortgage on 2 homes). Our last 2 hoes we've done OK on selling for more than we paid. We always pay off the mortgage in as short a time frame as we can (longest has been about 10 years). Our current place has gone up almost 60% in 5 years. If one of our kids with children ever find a permanent location we'd probably sell out current place and move 1 more time.
We never think of buying a house as an investment. It's just a better option than paying rent.
Finally paid off my home two years ago. We built and moved in, in 1983, had the loan down to $12,000 still owing, and refinanced to add two bedrooms, family room and bathroom. We then had the balance down to $110,000, when my wife moved out, so refinanced again to buy her out. Wanted to keep the home as I still had two children living with me.
I've owned several homes and rented a few. I've rented the past 15 years and have no desire to own another immobile home. Too much work and expense. Now the only home I wish to own is the travel trailer I've just purchased.
Every time the landscapers are outside I am thankful I'm not the one out there doing the work. When my water heater went out, one phone call and it was fixed for free before I got home. Can't beat that with a stick.
Still, not important.
It'll be a home just for me.
But then again, a Victorian home in Pasadena? Maybe.
It was right there.
But you do have a lot of homeowner costs for maintenance and property taxes. And it is ridiculous that something costs $1,000,000 while a 40 minute drive away virtually the same house would cost $300,000 and you'd also pay much less in yearly property taxes. Of course that adds to fossil fuel usage and pollution to the environment, because most people will opt for the better economical deal and drive the longer commute to work.
