Home ownership isn't the oasis it appears to be.

Tired of paying 1400 a month for that 1 bedroom and would rather pay a mortgage?

When you rent you don't have to pay for a new water heater when it eventually fails (it will), a new furnace, a plumbing leak, a basement wall leak. You don't have to drop $10,000 on a new roof. Roofs are wear items by the way: they don't last indefinitely. Somewhere around the corner that $10,000 bill is going to land.

Toilet leaking at the base. Replace that yourself for a total of $300 or do you pay $1,200 for someone else to do it?

"Oh no, my gutter is leaking and I got water running down the side of my house onto the window leaking in, do I fix that myself for $200 or do I pay someone $1,000?"

I come from a family of renters and I have been a renter a long time, but 3 years ago I became a homeowner. I have since realized how much I took for granted. Literally everything is now my responsibility. And failure to be responsible will lead to unlivable conditions. With no one to complain to.

If you have the money to buy a really good house then yes it's better than renting. If you can do the work yourself (like I do), yes it's better than renting. If you aren't making big money and also aren't handy, you should rethink how owning a home is so much better than renting.

Edit: Some have mistaken this post for me advocating against home ownership. That's absolutely not the case. It works for me because I can do the repairs myself. I'm merely explaining that if I made the same income but didn't have handy skills, it would be a total sinkhole.

I made this post because I see a lot of low-income individuals looking at home ownership like it's an escape from overpaying on rent. The costs to own are far more than the mortgage payment alone. Either you have the money to absorb the costs or you have the skills to do the work yourself.