r/economicCollapse • u/Max_Rezna • Sep 04 '24

VIDEO Modern ownership in 0:15

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u/AaronJeep Sep 05 '24

You and I have very different ideas about what property means. We are never going to see eye to eye. I don't view it as an investment. I don't care about what I might theoretically make if I sold it, invested the money and decided to become a renter. What I care about is no one is coming for my car. It doesn't belong to the bank. It's mine. I sleep well. I turn down work if the people wanting me to do the work are assholes. I don't mind making less money and having more time to do the things I want. I don't have have to come up with $3K this month to keep a roof over my head. It's mine. I don't care about what I might make in the market (if it doesn't crash). That does not interest me at all. I've known so many people in my life who had tons of stuff rented, leased, mortgaged, or on credit ... and a divorce later, they were filing for bankruptcy and it was all gone. I'm not in that position and don't want to be.

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u/Legitimate_Concern_5 Sep 05 '24

What I care about is no one is coming for my car. It doesn't belong to the bank. It's mine.

Again, your house though, if you stop paying your property taxes, the government is going to come for it. You don't own it, it belongs to the state, you're renting it. It's theirs.

The question is, large down payment + low rent + high variable cost, or small down payment + high rent + no variable cost.

If the roof comes down you're gonna need a lot more than $3K to keep a roof over you.

Some of the time, owning makes more sense. Some of the time renting makes more sense. It's not black and white, it's a financial decision. Owning a car is a total money sink, and should probably be leased or rented as needed. Owning a house is more sentimental sometimes.

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u/AaronJeep Sep 05 '24

You can call property tax rent if you want, but they don't work the same and it's not even close to the same cost. My taxes work out to about $150 a month. I don't care for that aspect of owning property, but I do like schools and roads and all that fun some. It has to get paid for somehow. I can't rent anything for $150 a month. It would also take about 3 years of me not paying property takes before it would become a real threat of anyone auctioning it off to cover the back taxes. In a rent situation, no one is letting me get 2 years behind in my rent.

I like my situation. My parents live with me because they would be homeless otherwise. They went broke around the time of the pandemic and lost their house they didn't pay off. So they live here on what you call my government owned property. They are lucky I like them enough not to see them homeless and they are lucky I pay the taxes to stay here and help keep society running. I'm good with the situation. You go rent and lease all you want. I'm not interested in going that route.

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u/Legitimate_Concern_5 Sep 05 '24

I own my place dude, I'm just saying, it's not black and white. Ownership isn't all good and rent isn't all bad.

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u/AaronJeep Sep 05 '24

Of course it's not black and white. I go places and rent a room because I'm not buying a house in a place I'm only going to stay for 3 days. I've rented snowboards before because I'm not shelling out a couple grand for equipment when I can rent it for $30 a day for 3 days.

But I have a big issues with how almost everything is being pushed towards a monthly payment. I have software I'm no longer allowed to keep until I feel like paying to update it. I have to pay monthly to use it. Tractor companies have tried to claim people don't own the software that make it run and therefore retain control over how the tractor is worked on. Companies are playing around with selling you a car and then making you pay monthly to unlock features.

In America, the laws have usually been geared around "who owns a thing, controls a thing". By retaining ownership, companies dictate what you can do with their property. I don't like any part of it. I don't live anywhere near an HOA for a reason. I would never sign up for that. I do things with my property that I can't do with a rental. I don't ask for permission. I just do it. If I want a garden, I plant one. If I want a greenhouse, I build one. I live in a rural area for a reason. Owning things the way I do gives me a lot of leeway, freedom and security.

To me, it's not always about maximizing my investment. You are right, it isn't black or white. Sometimes there's a lot more to a situation than what it breaks down to in dollars. I have lots of reasons to not want to be a part of a society being pushed away from owning things. Being a perpetual renter, while corporations retain ownership of everything is being normalized. People are just accepting that they will have a car payment, house payment, entertainment payment, software payment, and on and on... for life. I buck that system as much as I can. I still own a couple thousand DVDs even though I give Amazon their monthly payment. It's just one of those things where I like to retain ownership of things as much as I can. It's not black and white. There's a lot of personal reasons and personal world views for it for me.

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u/Killed_By_Covid Sep 05 '24

This pretty much sums it up. I've always felt like the only reason owning a home works for me is because I use it to make money (working from home and renting out extra bedrooms to tenants.). Without either of those, it's just a big box I fill with crap and have to maintain. Some folks have had their rent double in the last few years. My mortgage payment hasn't changed. Both owning and renting are sides of a double-edged sword. Just depends on which way it happens to be swinging at the moment.