Home Ownership: Who Needs It?

In recent years, several people have tried to talk us into buying a house instead of renting an apartment. They readily acknowledge a mortgage would be a little more expensive than the rent we currently pay and that peripheral expenses like house insurance would be far more expensive than the renters insurance we pay for now. And yet, these well meaning people insist that it would be a good investment.

Maybe they’re right. On some level, there’s some appeal to the idea that a portion of what we pay for our right to live someplace would go towards actually owning our own little corner of the world.

But then we take a good look at the people who are suggesting that we stop renting and paying renters insurance and buy our own place. And frankly, there are a lot of things about their lifestyles that we’re just not envious of. Here are some examples:

• They have to pay property taxes. We know, renters end up paying property taxes, too, in the form of higher rent. But, those expenses come up once per month, and are hidden within the rent. When you own a home, you actually have to cut a check twice per year, and those checks can be sizeable.

• They have to sell their house before they can realistically move on. We’re not absolutely positive we want to stay here forever. We want to keep our options open. Even if you do think you’ll be living somewhere forever, life has a way of rearranging our plans in a hurry.

• The homeowners get to spend their Saturdays doing household and yard chores. This includes maintenance, the worst of all honey-do list toppers. When you rent and something needs to be fixed, all you need to do is give the landlord a call. And if you’d rather be out when your toilet is being fixed, you can call a buddy and go play 9 holes while you’re wait. Believe us, it beats the hell of lying down underneath the sink with an assortment of pipe wrenches for half the day and fixing it yourself.

Don’t listen to what your uncle, cousin, grandmother or parish priest has to say about the advantages of owning your own home. Decide what’s right for you based on how much time you’re willing to spend working on the place over the weekends for the next 30 years and how high the real costs of living is in each place, including such things as renters insurance for renters and higher utilities for homeowners.

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