Again, you’re trying to justify your decisions you made 10-12 years ago by trying to pretend to be an economist.
Reality dude is that you’ve been on the fence since 2010-2012. The average amount you paid for rent is probably around $2000/month for the past 10-12 years, give or take. So that’s $240,000 you’ve been sending to a landlord.
$240k is halfway to what paying off a nice 2/2 townhome in 92130 would have been that is now $800k+.
$240k would have paid off a 2/2 condo in 92126 with change left over, and you would be free clear with no other major housing expense forever, and you would have had around $200k additional equity on top of that.
Forget about appreciation, you’re housing costs would have been fixed and even gone down as you refinanced…Even folks that overpaid and bought in the worst times in 2004,5,6,7 but were able to hold on and keep their primary would have been fine.
Eventually, whenever you buy, the total amount will have spent on housing in general is at least $240k more than anyone else that needed housing since 2010-2012 that purchased anywhere along that time, and give or take another 2-3 year’s that you’ll be waiting, that grow to $288k-$312k or more from rent. This is different for folks that are just starting out and weren’t old enough to buy back then, but you’ve been around the block since 2000 as you say since you were a dot.com worker, so you’re no spring chicken.
Let that sink in. It doesn’t matter how you slice and dice it. That’s reality. So, understandably, that’s why you’ll need a steep discount even to break even.
