Do I Really Need To Own A Home? | Asked & Answered
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This is the fifth episode of our 6-part capsule series, Asked & Answered. Co-hosted by TFD founder Chelsea Fagan & Erin Lowry of Broke Millennial, this series is dedicated to answering your personal money questions, from budgeting and investing basics, to navigating the financial headlines of our current political climate.
Thanks to Erin for her expertise!
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I have over $4M in stock index funds but I REFUSE to buy a home because it’s not an effective way to deploy my capital. I absolutely LOVE renting. Americans are oversold on the idea of home ownership.
You buy a home to live in / for security. Not really as an investment to earn an ROI. There are only a few legitimate reasons not to buy a home:
1. You cant afford it
2. You are constantly moving around to different places in the world
3. You are old/disabled and are not able to deal with upkeep
@@steadystackin7250or 5, your parents let you crash at their place for free
@steadystackin7250 or you want the flexibility to be able to change jobs, or move for better career opportunities
@@steadystackin7250you cant live in a place you rent?
@@steadystackin7250 Always more security when you rent than when you buy. When you buy you are in the hole for hundreds of thousands of dollars, when you rent your exposure is never more than a few thousands at the the really high end. Also almost always more ROI in the stockmarket than in a house and that is probably the most important reason not to buy a house.
I feel very seen with Chelsea’s comments about moving in with a guy into his home, wish I had gotten this advice sooner. I ended up being an unpaid maid plus full time studies and work because “I wasn´t contributing to it financially”. It is so important to chose your partner wisely.
The biggest difference between the US and some of the other developed nations is that the US is extremely wasteful with land use. There’s constant sprawl and outward expansion, all ways new subdivisions, more highways, more shopping malls and well more shopping malls. That really makes the US housing market particularly unique and to be honest a bit daunting. I don’t think it’s a given that any house bought at 2025 prices will see much value growth when developers constantly move onto the next former farmland/greenfield area.
Native Californian here. I 100% agree with this.
As someone who well and truly can not afford a house, but whose rent costs less than 30% of my income, I really appreciate this.
The thing that was always taught to me. Buying a home isn’t about a financial investment. It’s about retirement. It’s about having a paid off home when you retire, because you won’t be able to afford increasing rent once you are on a fixed income. Or at least it would be incredibly difficult compared to if you had a paid off home. Rent never ends, a mortgage eventually does. Now, when rents were low, I would say that this wasn’t exactly true cost wise. But my last apartment tried to up my rent by 800$ a month on the second year of my rental in 2023.
I bet those who told you that are still broke today and didn’t save a dime for their retirement… don’t take advice from people who can’t live without the government supporting them monthly.
Properly invest for your retirement, and you will be able to afford the life you want. Start investing a good portion of your income early, and you can easily have a few million when you want to retire.
@@thehomeless_truckerthats the case for the people in my life and now they have the house but no money or not enough for if they have to move into a care facility or etc when they cant live and die in that house
Until the tax code is fundamentally rewritten to not incentivize the exploitation of depreciation (largest and simplest tax shelter), government subsidized home ownership will always be the most readily accessible generational wealth building tool available to the working class and above.
Tax wealth and not work!!
“You don’t know the person you’re divorcing” is such cutting, prescient advice. Erin is 🔥🔥
I’m 25 and I’ve lived in 5 apartments. Every single one of them was impossible to get someone out for maintenance. I’ve dealt with mold, icicles INSIDE, leaking roof, abhorrent insulation…… It costs me SO much to rent, and I never get my money’s worth. I want to have my own home with my own problems and my own solutions. I give up with landlords and rental companies.
Did you live in a building that strictly had rentals? In other words, no one in the building owns the apartment. They usually focus on community living.
I ask because if I choose to rent, I would choose these types of buildings for this exact issue. I’ve never heard anyone complain but to be fair they lived in the expensive buildings. Im still on the fence but I’d like to know your experience
It’s okay to move into another persons house if you don’t earn equity if you negotiate a fixed rent and the cost is advantageous vs. renting from an assholewlandlord you don’t know.
Love the channel, and most of the advice here as a renter myself, but it’s interesting how some women with really progressive views still hold onto the traditional idea of marriage, especially waiting for a proposal, and assuming the woman is doing the cooking and laundry….I get that marriage means different things to different people, and there are obvious legal benefits, but you’d think that same questioning spirit would apply there too, right?
I had the opposite situation of one of your questions here. I owned my home and my boyfriend at the time, now husband, moved in with me and I charged him rent and half of utilities. It was still a better deal than he would have had if he got his own apartment so I felt it was fair. If things hadn’t worked out between us, yes he helped me pay my mortgage but he also had a place to live for that time. I see no problem with someone paying when they move in with a significant other. If the tables were turned and he owned the place I’d pay something towards it and help with utilities and I wouldn’t think twice.
I find the getting married before buying together debate very interesting because in the UK its more and more normal for life partners to not bother getting married because there’s no religious pressure anymore. But lots of people still buy houses/have kids together/stay together long term without marriage
thats normal. just the usa is reactionary
“He wants to buy a home, but has not proposed”
Well, neither have you. 🙂
This video is seems to go off the rails on topic on what would be a supportive community to the shift to blaming the man feels unnecessary we do not know their personal situations of these couples to say these things and saying something like we need to exploit these men seems way out of line . This isn’t why i chose to follow this channel . I get it i am just one subscriber against a million subscribers channel but this is way out of line
Relationships are so much more than just financial transactions. If a woman is giving up earnings for children, she should be protected and valued in case the marriage doesn’t work out. But who would go for a payment system from their partner for that earnings sacrifice? It feels transactional and wrong.
I love you guys and I love this channel but I don’t know about this whole “we should be exploiting men more” thing. Why is it cool to pay rent money to a faceless person or corporation and build their equity, and not your partner’s? I used to pay rent to live in my ex-boyfriend’s house, it was about 3 times cheaper than market rent because we were really just splitting the cost of the mortgage between the two of us and a couple roommates. We broke up and I don’t live there anymore but I don’t mind having contributed to his house, way happier that my money went to him rather than, like, the realty company that bought our last place before that and raised rent by almost a grand.
i agree with your first part, but its just not smart to pay for your partner to build equity without any upside on your end, unless they are giving you a massive discount compared to the market.
at a minimum you should have an agreement that your partner needs to pay out a dividend incase of separation, equal to the amount that your equity appreciated during that time period. for ex. if you paid $1500/mo for 24 months (36,000) and the house appreciated 10% in value over that time period, your partner should pay you $3,600 to buy you out.
rent must not pay anyones equity. those corporations „market rents“ are too high.
ya, chelsea has some major gender role trauma or something. having a partner move in and having them contribute in some below market rent way so everyone is benefiting is perfectly reasonable.
If i heard a partner say or agree with chelseas “exploit men” opinions, i would be out so fast
@
why equity? rent is just interest and maintenance
glad i am not the only one who finds some of the views a bit more jarring. Like, as a guy I do understand where it comes from, but when it is offered as advice to others it just seems kind of extreme.
Speaking as a female homeowner, it would be a dealbreaker if a partner demanded equity in my house.
I would expect no different from a male homeowner.
If they wanted to move into my house, we can negotiate a below market rate rent. Or, if we were to purchase a house together, I would be willing to sell and put up an equal amount of downpayment to what they bring to the table for a new property. But I am not giving up any of MY financial security that was earned prior to the relationship just because there may be a perceived power imbalance.
@@Novatrixs I am also a female homeowner but I would not ask my partner to pay rent on my house. I think that once you get married you have a financial partnership and your total earnings are the total earnings of the partnership. There is no division. I think this is an old fashioned viewpoint, but if I did not trust somebody completely financially, I would not marry them.
I think marriage is more about equity than equality. If I come in with more income and more savings than my partner, I would expect them to put down less than me.
I also wouldn’t want to delay my goals just because my partner did not have the financial means.
@@Periforeexactly. Marriage is about making one person, two people. Your view isn’t old school, it’s the way it actually works. That IS marriage.. combining two people into one.
I was absolutely floored, jaw on the ground, when I saw OP say she would charge her spouse rent. Like,,,? Capitalism really has us completely kcufed up.
@Perifore We can agree to disagree. Although, just to clarify, rent would be if we were dating. In the event of marriage, they can be added to the house title in exchange for half of the house’s value at marriage.
I agree in keeping expenses proportional after marriage, but I would not commingle my assets from prior to the marriage. I have seen too many cases where people entered marriage with the best of intentions and by the time they divorced were out for blood.
And I will not delay my goals for a partner, that defeats the term. If I have funds to retire early, and they do not, my goal is for us to retire together so it will not be a sacrifice to work longer to ensure there is enough in the joint accounts achieve that goal. However, if we divorce, I want to ensure I can still retire on my original, individual timeframe by keeping those premarital assets separate.
Haha, welcome to everything men have been fighting for for a long time. 😁
Put your house in a trust if your finances are imbalanced going into a relationship, or it doesn’t matter who’s name is on the title…
I’m saying this as a man with 100% equity in my house. 😉
These two make me look forward to getting older as a woman. they’re sharp and have so much poise and humor, the kind of woman I want to be
As a member of the LGBTQ community, I prefer the security of buying rather than having to constantly worry that the landlord will randomly decide not to renew my lease because they perceive me as an undesirable tenant.
that must change!
My fiance (boyfriend at move in) (M) moved into my house (f) and it bothers me that I’m told that he is free loading off of me (I make double the income he does). When we had the conversations of money upon move in, he didn’t want any legal rights to my home. He is legally my tenant. He pays 30% of his base pay plus half utilities. He is paying less for rent than he did living alone. He also has no debt and I have a large amount. His contribution has allowed me to pay down my debt as well. I find there to be a lot of double standards on this topic when the woman has more money and assets in a hetero relationship. I would like to hear your perspective on this role reversal
At 26:00, agreed, I would be VERY wary of new builds in the post pandemic era