This article spoke to me much more deeply than I expected it to.

I'm a 35 year old married person living in a Medium Cost of Living area that's making very good money. I do not have student loans and am inches away from paying off my wife's loans. While I don't have sizable savings (largely due to years of non-frugally paying off said loans), this has changed recently. We are also not having children.

I think I'm a textbook candidate of someone who _should_ be looking into purchasing a home, as I'm not far off from being able to put the traditional 20% down (and could do the down payment if I went the FHA route) on something decent in our city. However, I shudder at the thought every time I think about it.

I'm actually very happy with renting long-term and moving as needed. I like the flexibility this affords, the financial stability of a static monthly housing payment, and never having to worry about the "fun" of home ownership (as I really dislike doing house work; would much rather be outside).

Unfortunately, this viewpoint is derided every time the age-old "owning vs renting" discussion comes up. Several greatest hits always make an appearance, such as:

- "Renting is for poor people!"

- "Do you like throwing your money away? Owning _builds equity!_"

- "Landlords suck, so home ownership wins by default."

- "What if you decide you want a new kitchen?"

I loved this article because Jerusalem took the time and did the research to debunk (or at least significantly challenge) all of these talking points while confirming a lot of my suspicions about home ownership that don't seem to get as much attention.

The biggest one that really spoke to me was the common perception that "home ownership is an investment," for several reasons:

- Almost every anecdote I've heard of homeowners profiting off the sale of their home ended with either "I used that as a down payment for my next home" (usually much bigger, for, in my opinion, no reason other than to flex) or "we moved into a cheaper area and pocketed the difference". What if that "cheaper area" is a non-walkable car-adled suburb an hour away from the city?

- A much more common anecdote I hear are people re-upping their mortgage through HELOCs for all sorts of (IMO) irresponsible reasons (like expensive vacations or play-things, like Jerusalem pointed out) and hoping to make themselves whole they sell their house, since house prices "never go down." On its face, it's technically fine since this is "just" a more pedestrian version of a margin loan against an investment portfolio, but it feels really shaky to me, especially since "you" are supposed to own your home, not the bank.

- Maybe I'm super lucky, but I have yet to have a negative landlord experience. Big apartment complexes in nice neighborhoods are typically managed by well-run property management groups, at least in my limited experience.

- SO MANY PEOPLE are quick to mention that mortgages are typically cheaper than rent AND completely gloss over the fact that mortgages are a FLOOR, not a ceiling like rent is. "I sold my house that I bought at $x for $y but paid $z in maintenance and had to pay $w in closing costs and other fees, so I really made $x-$z-$w" is a rare anecdote because I don't think a lot of people track maintenance costs with any sort of granularity. I'm also not comfortable with the idea of "Oh shit, my roof caved in a bit because the previous owner deferred maintenance and now I'm paying $14k" dropping onto me at any moment! (The responsible thing to do would be to build a maintenance fund that's a percentage of the home's value, or something...this gets glossed over too, because...)

- SO MANY PEOPLE get their down payments from their parents! Like SO SO MANY. A shocking number of people, IMO. When you get a down payment as a wedding or graduation gift without knowing some basic personal finance, then "my mortgage being cheaper than rent" is a much easier story to tell, and saving for the $14k floating bomb is much easier to do! Jerusalem calls this out towards the end of the article where he talks about the obvious wealth and racial inequalities inherent to real estate, and I think he was spot on.

The argument on owning vs renting feels a lot like the ages-old "children or no children" debate. Almost every experience I've read or heard about vis a vis parenting sounds like a lot of work, commitment, and sleeplessness I don't want or need, but ends with something like "I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world; you'd have to be a parent to understand." That's a hard gamble.