Do you like your house/apartment?

I just recently decided to move out of my parents' house and have rented a 55m2 apartment. Two small bedrooms (one is gonna be turned into an office for my PC) and a living-room + kitchen space. It came fully-equipped and furnished, which saved me a lot of money and effort. Still need to sort a few things out before actually moving in though.

All in all pretty satisfied with my choice of residence. What about you? Are you living in your dream house? Own it or renting?

55cm² = under 2' square? Is this a house for ants?

Typo lol.

I rent in California, just outside of San Francisco (about 45 mins north)...so, yes and no?

It's expensive, $2750 for a three-bed, two-bath home that I share with two other people. And that's actually somewhat affordable, if you can believe it.

But I like the area, and the home owner I rent from leaves us alone and hasn't increased rent on us every year. I've actually been here for like 10 years at this point.

Still...I'd love to own my own place at some point. Hopefully sooner rather than later. All my family is in the area, and renting just seems like such a drain. But they don't really sell studios to live in, and a modest, older home around here would set me back about $750k and I'm not affording that on a single man's salary of 80k a year.

My goal at some point is to find an affordable three-bed, two-bath home and then rent it out to the point where the two roommates essentially pay my mortgage which, with a large enough of a down payment, is mostly realistic. The issue is I'd have to dip into my retirement (it's one of the few things you can take money out of your 401k for without penalty) to do that down payment.

Also, I'm single...no kids, don't want any...do I really need to own a home? Actually what you folks think of that? Genuinely curious.

Congrats on moving out! First time living alone like this? I've been away from my folks for quite some time, but have always had housemates.

Would love to have a spare room to turn into an office!

Living alone,paying nearly $1,500 a month for a 1 bedroom. Parents are gone,few siblings but we are not close in any sense and no relatives that talk to us. Living in Canada,the Liberal government is a bunch of jerks and it’s not getting any cheaper here only worse. But if things get cheaper here with rent maybe life wouldn’t be so bad. As far as my apartment,it’s a pretty cool place to be. Over 100+tv stations,XSX,1000’s of movies,fully furnished, restaurants,movie theatres,clubs, Malls,easy transit stations everywhere,major city near me,etc… My place is pretty great. Hopefully the landlord doesn’t raise the rent this year or any other year.

Yep. Built my condo apartment about 8 years ago for about $240,000CAD. All paid off now and doing a fairly full reno in May. Live backing onto the town arena with a really large park and surrounded by vineyards.

I love my place. It's a 1925 sqft ranch that I doubled to 3850 by finishing the walkout basement. There's not a bunch of land, but the 0.9 acre lot gives enough room to stretch my legs, and it's located in a small town outside of a larger city. Counting escrow, it runs 1307 a month a month on a 3 percent rate, so that's pleasant.

@mrbojangles25: "Also, I'm single...no kids, don't want any...do I really need to own a home? Actually what you folks think of that? Genuinely curious."

I am very pro home ownership, but that's mostly because I like the lifestyle. I HATE renting. Everything about it, from landlords and rising rent to not being able to improve anything. Some people never want to have to lift a hammer which I respect, but it changes the calculus a lot.

In short, it's largely a lifestyle preference. I think you can adequately build net worth and prepare for the future with or without it, it just depends on how you want to do it.

Do note that wealth building as well without one requires more discipline which statistics show that most people lack, unfortunately. They tend to spend whatever is available as disposable income.

Pros and cons. Plenty of people can rent and still invest well into portfolios/retirement. That being said, having equity to either sell or borrow against is always nice to have. Also gotta account for upkeep, replacement of any major parts (furnace/boiler/etc).

I was lucky in that my condos were new builds, so prices were set by the builder. Houses go for 700K-millions where I live, so new buyers are screwed. My property has gone up 2.5x in the 8 years i've been here... Insane.

Yeah first time. To be frank I should have done it sooner (I'm 31) but I got too comfortable for my own good. So I decided to shake things up a little - got a new better-paying job and now my own place.

Housing is crazy expensive right now and I suppose it's even worse in the US. I don't blame you for opting to share with housemates.

Buying instead of renting is worth it in the (very) long run if you can secure a loan whose monthly payment you can afford. If you have to bleed every month, you might as well own the house. Having a partner to share the load makes a huge difference too. Most people where I live get married, get a house loan (not a mortgage) and buy a 2-3 bedroom apartment in the city. Parents often contribute as well.

Yeah the reasons for home ownership are many and while there are some cons, I feel like the only real perk to renting is that I'm not responsible for maintenance. But honestly I can be handy when I need to be, so I don't feel like that should discourage me. I also know electricians and plumbers and carpenters through my job (we have an in-house maintenance shop) and those guys love helping their coworkers out.

I'm doing pretty good savings-wise; put about 15% of my paycheck away into my 401k and another 5-10% each month into stocks (usually an S&P500 index ETF). But the appeal of a home and the wealth it can generate is undeniable, especially in California.

I just wish it was affordable. I'm willing to work for it, I just don't want to go into ridiculous debt.

I feel like there is a huge demand for 1-2 bedroom "starter homes" out there but no one is building them. People having kids later, 20-30 year olds wanting to get a head start on home ownership before they settle down and have kids at 35. You shouldn't be approaching 40 (like I am) before you even consider home ownership, you know?

And that's not even getting into the intangible aspects, and there are many of those to consider as well (namely just having a place to call my own). I'd love to work on the property I'm renting but frankly I'm not spending money or time on a property I don't own/

I like the house I live in. It's located near a creek. Lots of deer and sometimes mountain lions come stalking in the neighborhood.

Ashamed to say I'm living with my parents. And I live in the basement. But we are currently building a house in town. Which is exciting. It's a tiny bit smaller and we'll be renting out the ground floor.

Yes and no.

I bought my home in 2015 and refinanced to a 15 year with a 2.1% rate in 2021. Was able to pay off my wife's student loans and the car when we refinanced. I'll never see a rate like that ever again though, and while it's a starter home, it just doesn't make sense to drop 800k to 1.2m on a nice home in a middle class neighborhood or upper middle class neighborhood. I'm in a cul-de-sac and I like all my neighbors at least, but don't like living within the city limits and would certainly like more property and another bedroom (in case the wifey decides to convince me by ransom to have another kiddo which I'm not sure my liver could handle!). I've also put a ton of blood-sweat-tears into this house will all the remodeling I've done myself, so it's hard to walk away from something you have so much invested into.

In summary, I still like my starter home but like many Californians I'm definitely stuck because of the outrageous housing costs. :(

Love my home. My wife and I bought a townhouse back in '07 right before the housing crisis and the value dropped a fair amount. Lived there for a while, 2 kids, dog etc.. but being stuck there for months during covid convinced us we needed a bigger place. Bought a stand alone home in '21 just as the market started going nuts in our area. Luckily we were able to get a great place for only a little bit over asking despite there being multiple offers on the home. Sold the townhouse for like 10% more than we originally paid which was great since up until '21 we would have lost $ selling. Got new place @2.5% so that's awesome too. Home around 25 years old, on a small cul-de-sac so very few cars, backs up to wooded area and a creek so there's some privacy, neighbors are cool. Lots of kids in the neighborhood for my kids to play with when the weather is nice. Looking to put an in-ground pool in. Living the dream.

I like my home a lot, but I've had to pay for quite a few repairs since we moved in 4 years ago.

My wife and I sold our first home in 2020 and moved halfway across the country for new positions within the same company. Our new place is quite a bit bigger. Its a 3800 sq.ft., single-story home with 5 bedrooms and 3 full bathrooms. We live on 0.25 acres with a small frontyard and a large backyard with a pool. Our previous home was a 1400 sq.ft., two-story townhouse with no front yard and a tiny backyard.

While our new place its much nicer, more comfortable and very spacious, its around 24yrs old. Since we moved in, I've had to replace an entire HVAC system, the water heater, all the sink and toilet supply lines, pool pump, various parts of my irrigation system, our reverse osmosis system and one of our built-in ovens. Soon I will have to replace the tiles on my back patio and fix the gate on the side of my house (its attached to the brick wall surrounding my place and the bricks are cracking in that section). We plan on living here or at least keeping the house until we retire, so I expect to put in some work over the years. It just sucks that quite a few things wore out all at once. :-P

Pretty happy with it. Bought something new. First one to move in. Stuff is still under warranty.

My parent's bought from our house from my dad's relatives. It was originally a living room, kitchen and three rooms and a two bathroom with a garage and 1/2 acre yard. My parents added a patio and three rooms and third bathroom. It's honestly nice aside from the yard having to be cut. Roof got replaced after about 20 years about three years ago. We also got central air which is comfortable then having window units which we had for like 20 years.