This is a question, obviously, as a Realtor, I get often, should I be buying a home? Why should I buy a home? Does it make sense for me to buy a home?
Here’s five reasons why it could make sense for you to buy a home.
1. Equity – Building equity. Home prices historically have gone up over time in every real estate market in the United States. Over time, building equity is something you can count on in your home. Obviously, if you get the wrong seven-year slice, you can find times where it’s gone down, but we’re over time, over a longer time horizon 10, 20, 30 years home values appreciate.
You can, in fact, count on the equity of your house to increase over time and to walk away with significantly more money than you spent.
Building equity is the number one reason why people should seriously consider buying their own home. You’re always paying someone’s mortgage – it’s either your landlord’s or yours – it might as well be yours.
2. You can do what you want – Let’s start with pets. I’m telling you as a dog owner (I actually have a dog, two cats, and two lizards) finding a place for them to live is not a small task when renting. And you try to tell your kids that – having pets is a big deal.
Then there’s the ability to personalize and make the house look the way you want it. New home owners often remark to me that they are surprised by the whole phenomenon of pride of ownership.
You can do things to it that you couldn’t do to a rental. You can expand, you can do all kinds of things without moving. Add an addition, things like that. Customization, that ownership, it’s yours. You can do what you want with it.
3. Tax advantages – There are some significant tax advantages to owning a home. The bottom line of it is you’re taking your monthly mortgage payment, the interest on your monthly mortgage payment, which in the beginning is most of your mortgage payment, and you’re paying it with pre-tax dollars like you would with a health flex spending plans. You are paying our interest, your taxes and your insurance with pretax dollars and deducting that from the income you declare at the end of the year.
It can wind up being 25% of your housing costs are picked up by the government!
4. Nobody can sell on you – No one’s coming over to you saying, “Hey, we decided to sell our house. It’s time to go.” That’s a big deal, especially in a rising market. Landlords often want to sell their property; It’s an asset for them and they want to sell it.
If you have kids or family and you don’t want to have to keep moving every couple of years or having someone surprise you with a 60-day notice or a 30-day notice say, “Hey, we’re selling it. Get out.”
Buying stops all that from happening. You own it. No one’s kicking you out.
5. Security – It’s very difficult for people to kick you out even after you’re in there and you stop paying mortgage. Look, if it all goes to hell, if you lose your job or God forbid something horrible happens to you and you really do stop paying your mortgage like something really went wrong and you’re not paying your mortgage, it could easily 12 – 24 months (or more) before the lender goes around to getting you kicked out for foreclosure through the process of foreclosure.
Now, look, I am not recommending you do this as a strategy. I am saying, however, if things did go to hell, you’d be better off having a mortgage than you would be a rental contract.
That’s it – Top 5 reasons buying a home could make sense for you. If you have questions, comment below. If you found this useful please share it.
If you’d like a free copy of my best selling book, Shortchanged by Shortcuts: 44 Surprising Ways People Rip Themselves Off When Buying or Selling Their Home comment below and I’ll reach out and get you a copy. You pay shipping and I’ll send you the book – easy peasy.