And on top of that, they made any alternative illegal! You want to live in your van? Illegal, you want to build a tiny house? Illegal. It’s insane
Then there’s all the expenses you didn’t know about before you bought the house. If you don’t have at least some DIY skills, you get to pay people a lot of money to fix things for you.
…BTW, the county just did a reassessment on your property and your property taxes have now doubled. In exchange, you get nothing. Congratulations.
Yup. Oops, you need a new roof and a water heater, that will be $34,000.
I wouldn’t say you get nothing from paying property taxes.
That’s true but when they double over 10 years and four schools in the area shut down due to “lack of enrollment”? Streets sure aren’t any better and my neighbor who works for the city has only had COL raises for the same past decade?
c’mon… something is going on.
I’ve never paid a mortgage, but £500 seems pretty low. Do mortgage payments tend to be that much cheaper than rent prices?
£100,000 over 30 years at 4.5% would be £506 a month. That plus the stipulated £25,000 deposit will get you a bungalow or terraced house near me as of about 18 months ago. Rent in my area starts at around £700 for a house outside of town or a single room in town.
So yes, £500 mortgage is possible. Rent being twice the cost of a mortgage for a similar property is fairly common. Banks and landlords being shitheads is guaranteed.
I think most of the people disagreeing with the post are from the USA, which has completely different costs/taxes/prices etc.
In the UK (as the original post is), it depends where you live - our mortgage is about £350 per month (5 bed terrace), but if would have been almost £500 a month without the deposit. Rent in the area is about £600 - £1500 per month, for similar or smaller properties.
Note that this is in Northern UK, in the sort of town sometimes described as “a bit of a shithole”. I could get a train to a town an hour away and the prices would literally double - but the ratio between mortgage and rent would be pretty much the same.
Even with the cost of repairs, and a tiny bit on insurance etc, it’s a significant saving. Also, the repairs actually get done, which was not the experience I had in rented accommodation.
