actor_au wrote:
So my question is: Is it worth buying a house?
Yes and no. As usual there are advantages and disadvantages to both buying and renting.
With renting a place, you've only got somewhere to live for as long as your contract lasts. Once it expires, you're as likely to have to find a new place to live as staying with your current location. If you persist in renting throughout your lifetime, you will likely have spent enough to buy at least one home, perhaps more. Renting has its good points tho, maintaining the place is up to the landlord, some bills are the landlord's problem as well, such as water rates, tho that's apparently being changed. :/
Buying a place of your own leaves you as the person who has to pay all the bills and maintain the place. However, it also allows you to change the place however you like... Take out that load bearing wall between the kitchen and the bathroom, add more windows to the toilet, whatever (I think apartments may be a bit more restrictive in that respect tho, they'll still let you repaint the walls hot pink tho).
Heh, and that's when financing your new dive comes into it. Yes, loans are probably getting more expensive now, $400k @ 7%pa variable (or thereabouts) now vs $21k @6%pa variable (in the 1970s) and ballooning out to 18% in the 1980s. That's how much houses have risen in value around here in nearly 40 years. Oh, and remember, when you're buying a house, that's not all you're buying, you're buying a giant fucking debt too, so remember to shop around for that and get the cheapest deal you can (while not compromising the security of your loan. Yay low doc loans and shady loan companies :/). The banks and lenders are as much after you as you are after them.