Member-only story
HOUSING
I Betrayed My Renting Brethren and Bought a House in the Suburbs.
What changed my mind so forcefully?
A couple of years ago, I wrote an article wholeheartedly in support of renting instead of buying a house. I had felt that way for quite some time and planned to continue renting for the foreseeable future.
At the end of the article, I spell out six distinct milestones that you should meet before buying a house. I only met two of them, stability and maintenance costs, before buying my current house just 18 months after writing that article.
So what happened?
In a word: COVID.
To be more precise, the titanic political, economic, and public health and shifts we have witnessed since the beginning of the pandemic.
The Quickly Vanishing Single Family Home
A new business model of Build-to-Rent (B2R) has sprung up the past several years, and the pandemic just pushed it into overdrive. Home builders are constructing new homes, even entirely new neighborhoods, that will never hit the real estate market.
Instead, these brand new homes will be marketed as Single Family Rentals (SFR), rented with all the appeal of a new home but without the…
