phoenix9lives:
In reply to Taipo (msg # 2174):
The reason my wife and I sold our house of ten years and went back to apartment living. Too many projects and repairs, not enough time and money.
I'm with you there. I owned houses from 1986 to 2017 -- three different houses and sometimes owning two when we moved but still hadn't sold the one we moved away from. Of those, only one represented a significant profit when we sold it, and that house we had while our kids were in college, so we had already refinanced our newfound equity out of it. The others we sold for the same or less than the money we paid for it and put into it in improvements. (I'm not counting upkeep, just real improvements.)
The myth that renting is a waste of money comes from my parent's generation, the WWII vets, who only saw housing prices go up and up. After selling my third house in 2017, I worked out everything we spent on home ownership, including taking the tax breaks into account (but also paying for yard work, maintenance, and all the stuff I no longer pay for now that I'm a renter), and compared that to if I had just rented the entire time and invested all my down payments. The difference is well within my margin of error, which means it was basically a wash financially. When I add the cost of all the stress of owning, buying, and especially selling the houses, renting is the clear winner.
moonbunny:
This is the reason I moved from where I lived to live with my cousin. Four incomes in one house means we can take care of everything.
It is a great approach, if you all get along. Do make sure, though, that you have an exit strategy that includes a legal agreement on who owns what. I've seen great friendships break up over such things. If you buy an antique side table that looks so great in the living room, be clear that it is you buying it with money over and above what you contribute to house maintenance, and therefore belongs to you when you leave.
When the person whose name is actually on the deed asks you all to contribute to the new roof, that's reasonable; that is maintenance. When they ask you to contribute to adding a new garage, that is not, since it will increase the value of the house (probably by more than it costs), and they'll get it back when they sell the house.
This message was last edited by the user at 17:41, Sat 11 Mar 2023.