> If you rent, the cost of staying may be completely out of your control. Indeed, it may not even be possible.
That's arguably a feature, not a bug. Rents generally don't skyrocket without cause, and they usually don't skyrocket in isolation. If you're living in an area where rents are increasing rapidly and your income isn't keeping pace with the cost of living (of which rent is typically a substantial component), you probably have very good reason to consider whether you're in the optimal location.
On the other hand, there are people fortunate enough to have purchased a home in an area that has done well since their purchase but who still struggle with an increased cost of living. You see this a lot with people who are on a fixed income, or who bought in an area that has experienced a boom. Yes, these individuals might be able to sell their homes at substantial profit, but they'll still have to move once they sell.
> My house is mine, and some of the things I have here just aren't available to rent.
Your house isn't yours unless and until it's paid off. This may not apply to you specifically, but a lot of people who call themselves homeowners are really homeowners-to-be in about a decade or two or three.
> Your house isn't yours unless and until it's paid off.
That depends what you mean. It's my understanding (as a non-homeowner of any stripe) that you can do more substantial remodelling projects without asking for your landlord's blessing in a home you have a mortgage on, which seems to have been the kind of thing the parent was talking about, and is a potentially substantial practical difference in whether a space is "mine" or "not mine" whatever the actual equity situation is.
> Yes, these individuals might be able to sell their homes at substantial profit, but they'll still have to move once they sell.
They have to move if they were renting, too, and would be have less money (if they didn't leave the very instant rent rose at all) instead of more. Of course, that's just saying that it's better to be long an asset when its price jumps.
Also, if your work doesn't tie you to a region and you've purchased a house, and rents are high, you can always rent out your house instead of selling it. I know several people who have done this, in one form or another, to generally positive outcome.
> Also, if your work doesn't tie you to a region and you've purchased a house, and rents are high, you can always rent out your house instead of selling it.
That's a couple of big ifs, but even so, unless you have purchased a house as an investment with the intention of renting it out, this is another one of the rationalizations that prospective home buyers use to convince themselves that they're making a smart decision.
As I noted in one of my other comments, many home buyers know very little about the local market they've bought in to. Professional investors and major institutions have purchased hundreds of thousands of homes across the country that they are planning/trying to stabilize and rent out. To my knowledge, Blackstone owns more than 26,000, American Homes 4 Rent owns around 14,000 and Silver Bay Realty Trust owns more than 5,000. These are just a few of the major players. There are countless other smaller players, some of them foreign, doing the same thing on a smaller scale.
It's quite sensible to question the impact this will have on rents in the areas where this activity is most prevalent as the homes are stabilized and rental inventory increases. And one should not ignore the impact these purchases have had on housing prices in these areas.
Net-net: assuming you're comfortable being a landlord, which can be a trying job with even a single property, market conditions and trends vary so significantly that it's simply not credible to state "you can always rent out your house instead of selling it." Heck, as a lot of people found out not too long ago, at times it can be impossible to do either.
I've done just that. My wife an I bought our house 4 years or so ago. House payments including all the interest and accompanying costs were lower if we wanted to rent a smaller crappier house in the same location at the time. Now we are moving countries and renting our place. Rent we are asking for is 50-60% higher than the costs we have and have so many people interested we may just up the rent a bit.
But I do have some experience renting places as my family has a few properties they rent and I used to manage a lot of the related work.
I would absolutely not state, free of context, "you can always rent out your house instead of selling it." The context was being priced out of the market, in addition to the the mobile employment caveat (which I agree is a big if, but if your job is tied to the region and you can't afford to live there you're boned regardless).
> you can always rent out your house instead of selling it
Even if you lose a little on the rent, somebody else is now paying for your mortgage and you can enjoy a cheaper apartment elsewhere. Or if you've earned enough, just buy a second house. Mortgages aren't so hard to come by even these days that it's outside the realm of the possible.
For those of us who want to stay in one place, this is a really good thing. If I want to invest in a workshop in the house, that's a good thing.
My house is mine, and some of the things I have here just aren't available to rent.