The high cost of housing means more people are being priced out of not only owning a home but also renting alone. The share of adults 65 and over looking to rent with a roommate has tripled in the past decade, according to the listings site SpareRoom.
“They’re not the biggest group of roommates, but they’re by far the fastest growing,” said the site’s communications director, Matt Hutchinson.
SpareRoom finds that roommates in general are skewing older. Young people are living with their parents longer, unable to afford moving out or simply trying to save up. Meanwhile, more people in their 50s, 60s and older are unable to make it on their own.
For years there were opinion pieces in publications about how much better renting is than buying. Financial experts made the case that the expense of purchasing and maintenance weren’t worth any benefits of ownership, especially in the long term. After dealing with big rent increases, insane landlords, and apartments being shown while I was living in them I wasn’t convinced. When adding in the relative stability in the of costs of ownership I always thought those experts were full of crap.
Turns out none of those articles took sudden increases in property values and rent into account. Trying to rent an apartment for someone on a moderate fixed income in my area has become damn near impossible. Rents have gone up ~60% in 5 years far exceeding the COL increases most people see from retirement income or even the raises they may be getting from their employers if they’re working.
Buying a home was one of the best financial decisions I’ve ever made.
sounds like the articles, “saying you should rent forever”, is probably propaganda pieces paid for by the same companies that want to buy up all the houses
Renting makes sense if the monthly cost is significantly less than what it costs to buy AND you save the difference and invest it. The last part is key, because it makes your retirement income higher and thus able to handle increasing rents. If you don’t save the difference (including if you are unable to), then you are actually falling behind.
Another factor that needs to be considered is multi-family housing vs single-family, which is a distinction that is separate from the rent vs buy discussion.
Fwiw, I’m firmly in the “rent MFH, buy SFH”. I don’t want to buy a condo or rent a house.