This morning I heard some talking head on the radio, apparently a financial analyst or something, tossing out that question rhetorically, I dunno, since some existing home sales report was dismal yesterday and it brought the markets down.
One of those doom-and-gloom blame-the-economy reports, you know the kind. It’s tough to find a newscast these days without one…
But it got me thinking back to when I bought my house — did I buy it as an investment?
Nope.
Did I buy it to save money?
Not really. I mean, sure, my original mortgage payment was less than an upscale one bedroom apartment could be had for. Now that my mortgage payment is less than $500, well, it’s less than a rat-infested two bedroom apartment could be had for.
So, okay, maybe it was a money saving venture but that certainly wasn’t my intent.
Point is, I didn’t buy my house as an investment or to save money.
I bought it to live in.
And that was a good investment.
I agree to a point… my husband and I are in the middle of the approval process to buy a house. And while it will be slightly higher than the rent we’re paying right now, the ultimate savings will be that someday we’ll own the house (if we live that long) and we won’t be throwing money down the drain paying rent to someone else. But I agree in that our main goal isn’t to invest or to save money, but to have a decent, affordable home to live. I don’t think the economists quite understand that concept. 😉
The investment part of home ownership is only one element. To me the main question is one of “life style.” And how do I live that out? I have rented and I have owned. This was largely determined by what I could afford. But when I could afford to own a home, I found that I could live closer to my “life style” dream.