But, that seems like bad advice in general and I’m not sure why you would say that. I am genuinely curious if you care to explain. Beyond reading most of this article, I haven’t done any research into current interest rates or house prices lately, so maybe there’s more to it than I am aware.
Generally, buying a house is a good long-term strategy. You can give 100% of your money to somebody else with rent, or you can effectively put an increasingly bigger portion of that money into savings. Even if a mortgage payment is 50% more than rent somewhere, that difference would basically be the principal portion of the payment at the beginning and more later on, meaning it stays your money. And even if the price of houses are leveling off now, they’re nearly guaranteed to go up at some rate.
According to the article, if you don’t think you’ll be able to keep your mortgage for 13.5 years, then it sounds like the closing cost and other fees could make it a bad investment. So maybe if you’re 60 years old or if you don’t ever expect to increase your salary then maybe this isn’t a good idea. Otherwise, I don’t think somebody should just blanket decide to resign to being a slave to housing and life in general.
Buying a home isn’t as easy as it used to be. But it’s not impossible. And it is probably the single biggest thing you can do to change the trajectory of your life. For many people, I would think it is worth serious consideration.
These are just my opinions, though. I’m not a financial advisor.