Rent is quite a bit less than mortgage payments would be, but at least with mortgage payments you're paying off your loan, not someone else's! I'm not too worried about (b) because I'd be trying to start something in my spare time, then only quitting the day job if it was actually paying enough for me to do so. Part c - well, I'd be looking for a fairly new place .. and as for (d), it's much too late for that ..
I think that what I'm taking from this article is that I have to identify a lot of "unknown unknowns". I admit that I was naively assuming housing prices around here would just go up forever; this article raises the question that they might not and I need to sit down, learn about this stuff and make an informed decision...
On the topic of "paying off your loan": be a little careful with that, because for the first several years of a mortgage (at least as usually structured in the US, but I think this is typical elsewhere too) you're not paying off the principal by very much; and if you rent rather than buy, you are not responsible for building upkeep and the little surprises that an owned home always seems to throw at you at inconvenient times.
>> but at least with mortgage payments you're paying off your loan, not someone else's!
As an example, if you're looking in the Sydney CBD you could easily be borrowing ~$400K (or more). At interest rates of 6% a year initially you'd be paying $24K/year or approximately $460/week to the bank.
At least for the first few years you'll be paying almost the equivalent of rent to the bank just to service the loan, in addition to the repayments off the principal.
Rent is quite a bit less than mortgage payments would be, but at least with mortgage payments you're paying off your loan, not someone else's! I'm not too worried about (b) because I'd be trying to start something in my spare time, then only quitting the day job if it was actually paying enough for me to do so. Part c - well, I'd be looking for a fairly new place .. and as for (d), it's much too late for that ..
I think that what I'm taking from this article is that I have to identify a lot of "unknown unknowns". I admit that I was naively assuming housing prices around here would just go up forever; this article raises the question that they might not and I need to sit down, learn about this stuff and make an informed decision...