sdrealtor– A lot of ground has been covered since my last comment, but I think I can summarize by saying that it definitely gets confusing when we go back and forth between anecdotal, personal, and typical (whatever the hell that is) situations.
We’re certainly all guilty of it, but I find in this post you use whichever one supports your position best. Even when you commented on my tax benefit link, you used the 20% down example, which may be typical, but not necessarily your personal situation or that of your neighbors.
Again, we all do it, but again refering to my tax benefit point, I was very clear that it was personal and that 50% down was not typical, but instead my personal situation. It’s funny because I tell people that *I* don’t get a tax benefit and they still doubt it.
Your last post is sort of the capper for me, as it comes off just a little bit snobbish. I’m pretty certain that I could be your neighbor, and somehow I could accomplish this as a lowly renter (and it would be at a discount).
So where am I going with this? I’m not trying to be critical, but I think that we all need to try to consider these arguments in the here and now, and we can even use different demographics to support them–yours, mine, first-time buyer, rich dude, whatever.
It’s just not useful to throw in all benefits that have been associated with home ownership at different points in time and consider them all valid today giving us x% as realistic premium for buying over renting. Appreciation is the perfect example here. Over time, it’s been a tremendous benefit, but right now, I think most of would agree that you won’t be able to factor that in for some time to come.
You purchased your home in 1998 and obviously the benefits have been tremendous. I think we’d both agree it’s a bit different in 2007.
