Memes

But you're not researching, hiring, and scheduling a contractor to fix it. You don't need to become an expert in long term planning and anticipate problems. You're not mentally cataloging basic maintenance tasks like when you last painted the siding or mowed the lawn.

Home ownership vs renting goes beyond equity and I know a lot of people who were happy renting because it gave them a huge chunk of free time back for trips, hobbies, etc.

You are basically insuring yourself against those expenses, which has a premium. If you are good with money and have a savings, you can afford not to pay that premium. Not everyone is in that position or smart enough with money. So many people are bad with money, that stuff really should be taught in school.

Yeah but you know what, you always have a home. It is very unlikely the bank will ever foreclose on you, they rarely do that, even in 2008 almost nobody lost their homes.

But me, I lose my home on my landlords whim. At any given time I may have just 30 days to pack my life up and fuck off, and there's nothing I can do about it.

You have stable permanent shelter. Don't undervalue that just because you have to maintain it.

I actually recently learned about housing co-ops. Basically an apartment complex led by a committee of residents. It's non profit high density housing, so you can buy a share (meaning rent an apartment) at much lower rates. As an example, in my area the co-ops are at 1/2 to 2/3 the cost of traditional rentals. The downside is, from what I hear, the folks managing the apartment complex can be even worse than an HOA if you're unlucky.

IMO this is the sustainable way forward for housing.

Don't forget food too. No one should profit on necessities.

In a perfect world sure, government is fully funded and runs smoothly people care about the everyone etc.. etc..

But in reality I really would be very hesitant to want to live in that world. It is very scary to have a single organization control all your housing. At least with the way it currently is if you don't like your landlord you can go somewhere else. If the government owns everything your kind of stuck dealing with the same organization no matter where you go. Governments are not immune to corruption and can screw you over even worse in some cases then an organization.

In my opinion the best solution is many private citizens and small rental companies combined with government enforcing laws protecting both parties. However one big issues I am seeing is huge companies buy up everything in a small area and build a monopolies on rentals. That isn't good either.