Sam Parr  ⚪️

If you’re in the wealth accumulation phase of your life, I think buying a home is a terrible decision (in most cases). Prove me wrong. Seriously. I’m not being rhetorical. I want to see if there’s math that says otherwise.

You have to compare the alternative. In my case, my mortgage payment was 20% less than my rent. One is burning money and the other is earning (house went up 22% in 15 months). I think buying a house is better than renting, specifically buying a house under $500K (3% down).

I did compare the alternative. That’s the point. I’m saying it’s a bad financial decision because there are so many better ones.

Also, that 20% doesn’t include taxes and fees. It also won’t happen each year. Stocks outperformed over 100 years by like 2x. And you can’t click a button and liquidate it for, say, starting a business that can grow faster than 20% a year in value.

You have to live somewhere. My total payment is less than when I paid rent (more cash to invest today vs then) and my my payment each month is owned vs not owned. The only difference is down payment which can be viewed a low risk “investment”. How’s that not better?

Opportunity cost

I have less cost today and the money I am spending is working for me vs not. The only way is if mortgage payments are much higher than rent or down payment is enormous. Which are avoidable.

I do not think the math agrees. If you wanna do it to be happy, that’s plenty good reason.