Buying a home/moving out/taking out a loan.

[aduidarnenye]

I'll give you that things differ from country to country, and that things even differ in countries from region to region. Houses where I live range from about 150k to 1.5M, depending on the location (one hour drive to the city or downtown Halifax)

I'm aware that these sorts of things have slumps and bumps, but I think would put my money more on a 401k (perhaps the same as an RRSP in Canada) to "guarantee" decent retirement savings than investing in a house (in which you will also live for 25+ years - not an investment property such as an apartment building) is a safer "bet" when thinking about the possible outcomes. Houses as investments can just throw you so many curve balls that you can't predict. Nice to have, I suppose, if you're into that kind of thing, but I don't think they should be thought of as savings for retirement.

[Dantrag]

I don't regret buying my house for one second. SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much better than living in an apartment. Dogs have a yard. We have about 400 more sq feet. Can paint it whatever the hell color we want. Been slowly replacing fixtures with new ones. Replaced the old dome light in the kitchen with a new LED track light. Replaced the fan in the living room with a light/fan combo. It's the little things that matter. going to replace 2 lights in the hall and a chandelier and pub light in the dinning room and breakfast nook.

[Mikus]

Not going to bother pointing out everything wrong with every post from Adui. Eagle, sounds like you have your plan. Good luck. Don't follow any advice from Adui. Sounds like he needs to invest in a bubble to live in to protect him from all the bad things out there.

[volcanicweather]

This thread has taken a turn for the worst...

Seriously renting or buying is all about PERSONAL PREFERENCE. I rent with my girlfriend and will continue to rent because we are in our mid 20's and don't want to deal with the upkeep and responsibility of a house, not to mention we aren't deadset on living in Dallas for decades. We spend roughly 25% of our takehome pay on rent and like Adui we live a very comfortable and fun lifestyle where we would rather spend our money elsewhere than our property. Renting is a good way to know you will be paying the same amount every single month for your living expenses, whereas owning a home means your mortgage+insurance+taxes is the MINIMUM you will pay each month.

With this said, if you're a "settled" person and have dogs (especially large dogs), kids, old people to take care of, have never lived outside your city/state and do not plan to, on and on... then by all means buying a house could be for you. Having dogs makes renting more difficult because it makes it harder to find a place to rent, kids bring in restrictions of having to keep them in the same ISD area (or daycare) if they don't go to private school, and some people are just afraid of leaving their comfort zone (people who are born/live/die in the same town) so buying makes way more sense. To me the best thing about home ownership is if you can get into a short-term mortgage and pay off your home quickly, because paying just insurance+taxes for your living quarters would be pretty damn sweet. Another great home ownership situation would be to buy a large duplex in a high-rental part of town and rent half of it out (you live in the other half) so your mortgage is drastically reduced or even covered. At my first job I lived in a huge old Victorian-style home which was sectioned off into a triplex and the owner lived in 1 unit and had a huge profit margin on the place.

tl;dr - renting/buying is personal and there is no right/wrong choice, if you're going to buy be smart about it.