I think thats the key. If the OP is flexible and willing to live in a lower COL area or downsize to a smaller place then being priced out of the housing market (or the rental market) probably isn't going to happen - assuming affordable rentals/travel costs that don't eat too deeply into the stash or an investment market decline or crash.
This is definitely the case for us. If we leave our current city, we probably won't come back, so we have no fear of being priced out of THIS housing market.
I have ZERO pride of ownership, or love of ownership, or anything of the sort. I borderline resent that owning makes so much sense for me because it's a massive headache.
And owning is the opposite of freedom, you are beholden to your property, to it's needs, it's taxes, the will/mismanagement of local governments, etc, etc.
This is pretty much the way I feel. In my day-to-day life, I don't feel the "assetness" of the house I own very strongly. I'm much more conscious of the fact that I have $400-500k tied up in a specific piece of property that has to be maintained and worried about. I'm anxious by nature, and our house tends to become a focus for that.
The renting scenario I'm imagining that worries me is being 80ish (or whatever age it is at which we're not as flexible or able to make sudden moves), and having our landlord decide that he/she is going to sell the house/condo and that we need to make other arrangements that we may not be equipped to make very well. There are, of course, equally disruptive events beyond our control that could happen to us as homeowners.
I may just be trying to look too far ahead into an unknown future or looking for a security that doesn't exist.
Yep.
Also, there are areas where it's much harder to evict someone. Where I live, if you rent in a rental building from a rental company, there is no way to evict you unless you do something to warrant eviction.
In very rare cases, a company will sell a rental building and it will be renovated into a condo building. That's extremely rare though, and the payouts for rental residents are massive.
My aunt is in her 80s and has been living in the same highrise for 30 years, rent-controlled the entire time. They would LOVE to evict her, but they can't.
She'll go from her rental to a retirement home, never having had to worry about a broken toilet or a tax bill or anything. In her case, hunkering down and staying in one place indefinitely actually worked out more in favour of renting than owning.
My grandmother did the exact same thing in the building next to hers, my other grandmother did the same thing in Toronto.
Because I prefer highrises, if I were to plant roots in one location, I would absolutely rent thanks to the laws here. But I don't want to stay in one location, but I do want to be able to return, so renting actually makes less sense for me.
Also, once you're much older, your money doesn't need to last as long. Maybe at that point, spending a lot on a house will be an easier.
Also, you have no idea what areas will be like in many years. If you don't have a solid idea what area you want to lock in, you could end up screwing yourself in the future unless the property is a solid rental investment (and you want to be invested in rentals).
Locking into *a* market is not the same as locking into the correct market for your future needs.
My HCOL market is where all of our immediate family are, it's also where the federal government is, so it punches above its weight class in terms of amenities and likely always will. So it's my advanced healthcare location, and that's the reason I'm not willing to cut the tether, because I have complex health issues that generally don't need active care, but when they do, I need reliable access to world class specialists that lower COL places don't have.
The duplex location is where all of our preferred extended family live. It's also a one-of-a-kind city where the downtown core is two peninsulas in the ocean, and it's a UNESCO site. There's nowhere else like it in the country. I knew I wanted to live there at some point the moment I arrived. I have a small obsession with the ocean.
Our third location is one of the most beautiful, unique locations on earth, and it would cost a year's worth of mortgage payments to rent there for a month, and there are no long term rentals available, and when there are, the owners always prioritize renting to medical staff.
That was supposed to be a vacation rental property that we might use a few weeks a year, but I spent a summer there fixing up the house and fell absolutely in love with the location and the people and we now live there half the year and have no active plans to ever rent it out as a vacation rental. It's just a luxury for us at the moment. We even built an extension to be able to live and work there full time.
That place is the closest we have to a "home" that we feel we own, and a sense of pride of ownership. I truly love that specific house on that specific lot and we have deep ties to a generational community. We had to decide between the extension and buying a different house and I couldn't find any house that I would prefer.
All 3 locations have very specific features that are uniquely beneficial to us, many of which will never change.
It's also worth noting that all 3 properties were very inexpensive, the combined purchase price of all 3 which we bought within the past 4ish years, is less than half of the average home price in the country. So we certainly haven't put ourselves out financially to buy them.
Also, we bought two when I had a lump sum of cash and the markets during the pandemic were nuts. So I was happy to diversify into real estate. Lastly, we got incredible deals on all 3 properties because of sellers who needed out and whose first accepted offers fell apart on financing. So we got each property at asking when the norm was offers at least 20% over asking.
So when I say that real estate truly came out ahead as the smart place to put my money, I'm not kidding. I truly never, ever wanted to own, but it was just so stupidly beneficial, so now I own a small collection.
I would never in a million years buy an expensive property that doesn't clearly work as a rental, in a market I don't have reason to absolutely love, for some unknown time in the future where I have no idea what my needs might be.
I have solid reason to think I'll want to live in one or more of the 3 locations where I own. Right now we live between the HCOL city and the little remote house. But if our needs change, renting out all of them would produce more than enough cash flow to cover the cost of renting in virtually any market we would want.
So owning has set up a system of multiple levels of security.
But I wouldn't do it otherwise. I wouldn't own unless it added to my flexibility, because you just never know what life will bring in terms of needs and wants.
