Housing discussion

Sure, in extreme instances but this can also happen with a condo

ur right, in standard conditions land is a good investment, but I thot we weren't into that here. It's like saying the dollar is great when it's working. the issue is that it is not going to work much longer.

>Buying VS renting
I rented for the past 4 years, but I'm looking to buy a house now.
Just use this to determine if it's better to rent or buy nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/buy-rent-calculator.html
>Buying a house VS buying a condo
I won't even consider a condo, at least not in my area. Condo fees you have little say in, special assessments can cost you absurd amounts unexpectedly, and there's possibly questionable build quality (unless you're confident in your abilities or have a good inspector).
Not to mention condo fees will only go up, in 10 year old buildings I see some condo fees in the $600+ range, 20 years $800+ range. Meanwhile you can rent a 1 bedroom for $1200.
Who's going to buy your condo for that?

A house on the other hand will get you more land, more freedom, more potential for financial growth. Sure doing your own maintenance sucks ass but you can all the rewards if it appreciates, and worst case you can hire someone to do the maintenance.
In my area any house appreciation is tax free, which is a nice bonus.
Then you can also rent it out, and it's possible to actually be cash flow positive. Once it's paid off it's basically passive income that will still be fairly stable even in a recession.
Even better you can use leverage on any equity you've put into the house to buy other investments, which isn't really possible with other investments.
Also since it's leveraged your gains increase by the total amount not just the amount you put down, for instance if you buy a 500k home with 5% down of 25k, if it goes up 5% and is worth 525k a year later, you just turned a 25k into 50k. Although there's some risk if the house drops in price.

I'm sure my house is worth less than I paid because I bought in 2007 and never did any maintenance. Shit is seriously falling apart. My main shower is even leaking through the wall into my master bedroom and the baseboard is wet in the master bedroom. The shower needs recaulked bad. The roof started leaking and I paid someone to patch it. The whole roof is over 20 years old and needs replaced, along with the trim and fascia. The outside window sills are like separating from the house and idk what to do about that, maybe tons and tons of caulk? idk but that would look like shit. Some of the window sills on the inside are seperating from the wall up to a third of an inch, I've recaulked into those cracks twice now and it's unsealed again. The whole textured ceiling on my back porch has fallen in and I can see the 4x8 boards now, even the caulk or whatever between the boards has come out and fallen. My duct work has black mold in it now and needs fully replaced. It's time to replace the whole central A/C system, just waiting for it to completely shit out because that costs like $6,000 for the size I need. The front porch ceiling has patches of the texture that have fallen off and peeling away. The ceiling in my living room needs fixed from that leak I had in my roof. I have mold in my attic from 2 leaks that were patched. The exterior is in need of a whole repaint. And theres more problems. It just never ends. The house didn't have any problems when I bought it.

Also 3 walls with holes in them from punching them when shitfaced and raging because of my gf years ago. My fault. Too big to patch. One foot hole in my living room wall too. Other living room has a human sized hole shittily patched by an old neighbor.

I basically bought near the peak and the house has fallen apart with me doing absolutely no maintenance and treating it as a condo because I have none of the skills required to maintain it myself and would have to hire people to do all of the work.

Come on don't let this thread die.
Not very many people even answered my original questions for them
What did you all decide to do for housing? And why? Do you feel you made the right decision?
What are the pros and cons for you?