Nobody cares.

You don't need a series 7 to trades currencies

Egads, now I have to +1 ssorenn for having the correct rejoinder to my little shibboleth there.

I'm currently very happy renting an apartment with my gf. We have the freedom to do 75% of what we want without having to deal with all the maintenance of owning a home. Ultimately, though, I would like a house for a few reasons:

1) I want a large yard.
2) Rent for a several bedroom apartment is much more expensive than monthly mortgage payments, which makes having children in an apartment hard.
3) Tax deductions on a mortgage make a big difference.

Buy a house, write off the interest, use the equity as you can. Renting and paying money into the void every month is for stupid chumps, period.

My house would rent for probably twice the payment I have, and I have only owned it for ~10 years. USE other people's money.

When you are a RENTER --- the landlord has a mortgage....he is paying the mortgage with your rent. Duhhh....figure it out. If he thinks owning a building/house by renting it to you is a good idea...then you renting from him is a stupid chump move.

Your mortgage payments are deductible against all forms of earned income in the states? Is this actually true?

for once I agree with krellin...

Mortgage **INTEREST** IS deductible, not the entire payment. But it is still an added benefit as most mortages ar front loaded with interest.

So up front, the majority of the payment is interest which is deductible. As your 30 years progrwess (generally speaking) that mortgage payment is lower (financially) speaking as inflation takes over.

i.e. if your mortgage payment is $1000 / month right now...and you still have a mortgage payment of $1000 years from now...that $1000/month 30 years form now is going to be the cost of a loaf of bread.

Is it deductible against all earned income or just against income attributable to that cost? I mean, if you are renting part of the property or you use part of the home for business, I understand a part of the interest should be written off? But does your Tax Act allow this interest to be deducted against any incomes?

Secondly, yes your mortage is "frontloaded" with interest. But that's because interest is calculated on the principle so it will go down when the principle does.

And in regards to your analogy, your mortgage payments at the end of the term are so much less because of inflation. But the value of the property you now FINALLY own, has lost just as much.

"Is it deductible against all earned income or just against income attributable to that cost?"

All earned income, as I understand it.

Interesting - your government really wants you to want to own homes.

Also, in regards to what was discussed previously about Municipal Tax and, Repair and Maintenance costs being factored into the rent - it can't be. The market will determine the rent.

Yes, the US has a crazy pro-home ownership mentality.

I'm not quite sure about the second part. I must have missed that part of the conversation. I mean, repair and maintenance would have to be included in rent or the owner would go bankrupt.

It's deductible against all earned income to a point, and if the income level exceeds a certain level the percentage of deduction goes down

There's a grind down of the deduction after some threshold, is that what you mean?

Yes

" Yes, the US has a crazy pro-home ownership mentality."

Why is home ownership "crazy"?!?!?!? Uhhh...why would yo uwant to NOT own your home? Why does modern liberalism try to make the idea of being subjugated to renting your LIVING space from (9*gasp*) a Capalist a good thing?

I will admit that there are some cases in which renting is better than owning...but if you are planning on being in a region for an extended period of time, then ownership is superior financially by most any analysis. It just a numbers game, Abge -- you should appreciate that.

Krellin, wipe the foam away from your mouth and you'll see that I have said I plan on buying a house. However, as you admit, there are reasons renting makes more sense for some people. Because of that, I don't see why US Tax code should reward home owners and punish renters.

It's crazy because it ties people down when it would otherwise make economic sense to move.

"I don't see why US Tax code should reward home owners and punish renters"

Me neither, but...

The US housing market is fucked in a million ways. Building restrictions, rent control, tax breaks on mortgages, it is clotted up with a lot of offsetting bullshit. Me, I have a month-to-month lease, with rent that cannot be meaningfully increased, and I'm pretty much impossible to evict because of local laws. But different local laws prevent any new housing from being built (legally; there is a lot of black market housing with these "in-law" dwellings behind people's main houses.) So, sorry, town's full now. Never mind that empty supermarket lot by the next BART station down the tracks. It's nuts.

I have a month-to-month lease, with rent that cannot be meaningfully increased, and I'm pretty much impossible to evict because of local laws......if this is true, the owner of the property can just not renew your lease in 30 days

"if this is true, the owner of the property can just not renew your lease in 30 days"

No, that's not the case. Unless *I* give 30 days notice, it's automatically on for another month. This was also true last time I moved to this area like 18 years ago (when I left that time, I gave the 30 days notice, and that was that. Got my security deposit back too.)

Even I feel bad for the landlords around here... a hoarder lived in my place before I got here and could not be evicted. (I think her family intervened to get her out of the house and into help someplace). Cost my landlord thousands to clean the place out.

so you have a perpetual month-month lease that only you can break?

Pretty much yeah. The laws around here are ferociously pro-tenant.

Ah, I guess technically my landlord could give 30 days notice as well, now that I re-read my lease. But eviction is so practically difficult that I've never seen it happen. My landlord apparently couldn't get it to happen with the hoarder because her rent was paid like clockwork from some trust fund. I guess he could raise my rent too. I've never had my rent jacked up anyplace though.

If you rent, you can be turned out at any time (with legal notice given). Just ask all the Baby Boomer hippies who have been renting in San Francisco for the past 40 years.

"Baby Boomer hippies who have been renting in San Francisco for the past 40 years"

I have a lot of sympathy for renters whose lives get disrupted like that. Homeowners sabotage attempts to build new housing anywhere near San Francisco. It's ludicrous.

Yeah, but, well...

They're renters.

The fact of the matter is that, ultimately, renters don't control their own destiny with respect to where they live.

Well, until the house is paid for, neither do home "owners".

Yes, this is true. My point being though that the end-game goal is necessarily different. As many others have said, if you can afford the risk of a mortgage, the pay-off is likely to be well-earned. There are always some winners and losers. C'est la vie.