Can I Just Rent Since I Don’t Want To Build Wealth? 

For boomers and senior citizens, the current market and economy are unnecessarily harder. I'm used to simply purchasing and holding assets, which doesn't seem applicable to the current volatile market, and inflation is catching up with my portfolio. My biggest concern is whether I'll survive after retirement.

Alot of seniors who retire and never buy get priced out of renting.

I bounced around the world for 25 years with the military, renting was better, BUT I saved extra to buy a home with cash when I retired.

It depends on your individual situation and what you want out of life. I never married and have no kids. I choose to rent. I'm 70 now and don't want to own a home. I'm in a brand-new apartment with a lakeside view. If something needs maintenance, I just pick up the phone; I don't have to worry about vetting plumbers, electricians, etc. I don't have to cut the lawn or trim bushes. I can travel whenever I want. Once I pass away, my executor can just take care of my personal property as specified in my will, and he doesn't have to worry about selling a house. It's different for families; of course they want to have their own homes. It's what makes sense for you.

I was this guy. Lifelong renter, but only because I moved so many times during my career it didn't make sense to buy a home. I'd end up having to sell it within a year or two. If I had planned better 25-30 years ago, I'd probably have a fully paid-off home now. Instead, I'm now renting a friend's garage apartment because the rents in my area are insane. Marco, my friend, do yourself and your wife a big favor. Buy a home (even if just a condo), and suck up the property taxes and maintenance costs. Once you're no longer paying rent or a mortgage, those other expenses won't seem quite so bad.

"No surprises" is an odd expression for a renter. I was booted out of two rentals within a 12 month period because the respective landlords were selling. A relative is about to get booted out for the same reason. These were nice homes in nice neighborhoods. Being forced to move house is a stressful surprise for a renter.

I'm not really interested in building wealth either, but it sure is nice having my home paid off. No rent or mortgage, or car payments, or student debt. Maybe I am building wealth 😊

Wealth is security, it provides basic necessities, good education and gives you choices.

Renting is not throwing money away! If that's the case, booking a hotel on a vacation is throwing money away, too. Why book a hotel? Just sleep in your car. When you rent, you're paying for a roof over your head, amenities, location flexibility, and 24/7 staff members to upkeep your residence

It’s the property taxes that annoy me. Mine went up 24% last year just because. I didn’t do any remodeling or put in a pool.

Why would you not want to build wealth long term? Not thinking like a yacht or something, just being able to retire.

At this point owning a home does not equal wealth and rent is not “throwing money away” it can absolutely be a way to save more money as you have no property tax bill, home insurance, repairs, landscaping etc. Not everything is black and white.

The wife and I rented for many many years before buying and I absolutely love it. Landlords can raise your rent or sell the property anytime they want. Also, I REALLY love having property and space between myself and my neighbors. Every time I see apartments now I feel a bit nauseous.

Freedom is different for everyone. If freed up time by not owning a home is freedom to you, great. If freed up income by owning a home outright is freedom to you, great.

I get exactly where this guy is coming from. I'm 34 years old and I really don't see myself owning a home unless my partner wants to. But right now we are perfectly fine renting. We like having the option of moving anytime we want and I like not having to worry about upkeep. I'll probably buy an affordable condo in cash when I retire. Home ownership is not all that it's cracked up to be.

Rent within your means. After Surfside for example condo fees are going up so rents are going up. Be ready to move to a cheaper place.

I make $250k a year and am young and single. I pay $1500 to rent a nice place. If I had to buy a small house I liked it would be at minimum $700k. Doesn't make sense for me right now when I can invest the difference. Also the "wealth" from your primary house can't be used for anything unless you move somewhere cheaper

never buy always rent, make sure you lease cars at the max APR and max out ur CC's

99 out of 100 times as long as you pay your property taxes, no one can legally kick you out of your paid for home. I didn't use 100% because of eminent domain laws. But with renting, even if you pay your rent on time, when the lease is up the landlord can (with notice) choose not to renew your lease and you're out. Why would you want to put that much control in your landlord's hands! I do NOT want a landlord!!

Renting isn't "throwing $ away" - you're providing yourself a (hassle free) place to live. Property taxes and HOAs can be a real pain for homeowners.

I don’t agree w his decision, but I understand where’s he’s coming from. If you are not 100.00% committed to being a homeowner (and all the responsibility that comes with it), don’t do it. And this guy doesn’t want to be a homeowner. Nothing wrong w that.

a lot of wealthy people just rent very high end apartments. honestly i'd take a very upscale apartment any day over a house. Even if i was wealthy, i would then have to hire people to maintain the house. Don't have the patience for all that.

Great question and great advice. The older generation always told us to buy a home so you can write off the taxes but so many people did this and couldn't afford the home. I was born into the 60s and you were shamed if you didn't want to buy a home in your late 20s or 30s and it had to have a yard. I am so sick of taking care of a yard I could scream. When my husband retires in a few years we will move and get a garden home or a condo. If you can't afford to buy the home and take care of it, rent and go have some fun.

when I turn 70 who knows how much renting will be...but as a homeowner all I will have is insurance and taxes and an asset worth a couple of hundred thousand dollars that keeps increasing in value I also have 401k, Roth IRA and a pension .. I just feel like long term renting makes someone else rich!!

You will spend more in the long run doing that. Rents always go up. Mortgage is locked and once your place is paid off your cost go down even more. Mine is paid off and with taxes and insurance and hoa for a newer house monthly I'm paying like $450 a month...renting my house now I'd be paying $3000+ a month.

One thing i always hear is renting always goes up, but a house payment does not. But one thing that never gets mentioned is the expenses of and the maintenence costs to owning a home DOES go up. The gas/energy to running the lawn mower, labor costs of a repair man, prices of maintenance items at Lowes/Home Depot. Thank you, George, for saying renting is not a sin. Id love to own a home. I plan to. But the positives dont outweigh the negatives for me right now

On average, after 30 years, a person spends 223k more on their house than it is worth when they sell it. Most of the 223k goes towards interest, maintenance, repairs, taxes, and remodeling.

I own to have control over my living situation, but renting is perfectly fine. The money comes out slowly and rent is the maximum you pay. You don't have money locked up that could be getting you better returns elsewhere. My home's "appreciation" over the long run is just around the inflation rate and it consumes around 5% of its value annually just in operational and maintenance costs.

It's totally fine to rent. It keeps your options open to take on employment opportunities as they become available and gets you a chance to work/travel to different places without the hindrance of buying/selling every job opportunity. We saved a lot of money this way. Six years ago, we finally built our house for our kids to grow up in, paid in cash. We absolutely hated the idea of a mortgage.

I really like how the gentleman was very receiving of the advice. Sounds like he just never had it all broken down to him in the way Rachael and George did it. He is definitely on the right track. Good luck to him...

Im 38 when i was 18 i remember looking at a 1 br apt was 375$ i thought that was ridiculous now its almost triple that at this pace rent be 4-5000$ a month when I’m retirement age

Dave Ramsey and his crew never get tired of plugging for the real estate and mortgage industries. Buying real estate is ONE WAY of building wealth, and it's debatable as to whether it's even the best way. If you prefer to rent and doing so costs less than owning (which is usually the case), you can then use the savings and build wealth in other ways (stocks, bonds, precious metals, etc.). And only a fool would be considering buying a house in this market.

Renting in my area isn't much cheaper than owning the same house with 20% and good credit. Yes, unexpected bills come up with owning, but the house will be yours in the end.

I get where he is coming from. My experience, especially any house 1980's and back. Crap breaks ALL the time in a house. And you have to he prepared to fix that. It can stress you out real quick.

Sadly we all know True Home Ownership doesn’t exist

All I know is I own my home outright and my property taxes are a fraction of what rent is in my area. And that will always be the case because when property taxes go up, landlords will raise the rent.

This was so well explained. Anyone wanting to know the difference between the benefits of renting versus owning who has no idea about anything real estate should watch this video

I worked with an elderly woman who renting the same apartment for 40 years. She ended up having to move out of it because she couldn’t afford the rent anymore. She now lives with her daughter. It will always be better to rent than own. Renting is supposed to be temporary.

I have realized people with power are generally jerks by default. Therefore, when it comes to your home, THE most important possession in your life, it's best to reduce the people that can exercise power over you. A landlord is a worse proposition than the city bureaucrats (pro tip: the city bureaucrats are jerks to the landlords, and renters get the downstream consequences of all of it).

You build wealth so that when you get too old to work, you are not depending on the taxpayers.

People also forget or choose to ignore the tax savings that come with home ownership. You can write off property taxes and mortgage interest on Schedule A each year. And a big one, you can exclude $250K (S) /$500K (MFJ) of gain when you sell. And you can do that multiple times in your life as long as you follow the rules regarding what constitutes principal residence and time frames. I don't advise people to do something for tax purposes only, but it should be factored in when you run numbers. I can't think of any tax deductions for renting for individuals.

Nice thing about owning a house is when you retire and downsize, you can sell the larger house and pocket some spending money. A co worker of mine said something smart to an apprentice, you don't want to kill yourself when you're young and sacrifice your body when you're old and actually have the money to enjoy it. When you're young you have nothing but the ability to work and save, when you're older you have the finances to do all the things you want to do without having to kill yourself to do them. It's a double edged sword, to those that just want to party and "enjoy" their lives. Sooner or later you're going to regret throwing your money and body away

Buying a cheaper house or condo and paying it off as early as possible then investing is the best option. This way you can not have debt and put your money in mutual funds and compound your money in interest. You want to earn interest and not pay interest in your life and it will work out great. 2 jobs, a side hustle whatever it takes

Renting has its benefits and having a mortgage has its benefits. Everyone's situation is different. It is best that you understand all the risk/rewards that come with both to see which best fits your situation. You may be surprised by what you find.

My wife and i currently rent. Perks of where we live include multiple landlords families who started living debt free before Dave Ramsey was born. Our 2 bed 1.5 bath attic in a house the owner's grandpa built is $750 a month. However I'm also on track to double my income in this decade so we're looking to buy in about 3 years. Renting makes sense today, owning makes sense 10 years from now

You have two options. Either pay rent until the day that you die, or pay a mortgage for 15-30 years and then you OWN the property. I don’t know about yall, but I don’t wanna worry about rent increases when I’m 80.

The other thing is a landlord can end your lease and not renew and you need to scramble and bounce around. Is that something you want to do in your 50s and 60s and beyond?

Our house will be paid off next March. 9k more per year in our pocket to do whatever with: invest, vacations, krokodil.

Love listening in to Rachel. Very smart!Her and George bounce off each other great! Thanks you both!

Problem is with the price of renting now you can not put money aside to buy a home

Renting works for some people, in specific circumstances, long term,. I suspect most people are going to see renting as a way of juggling payments to consume more NOW rather than look at the money they earn as a tool to grow their wealth and have a nest egg to live comfortably life in old age.

Renting can be better long-term in some situations, especially if interest rates remain near where they are and you save extra money for retirement.

It's not just the increasing cost of rent, but also the fact that you have no long term stability in housing. Who wants to be moving at 85 when the landlord dies and his kids want to sell the property?

He could rent until he’s old enough to buy into a retirement community, which would probably take care of things like repairs and maintenance anyway.

When you rent, you're already paying every single cost associated with that property. EVERY. SINGLE. CENT. Taxes, repairs, mortgage, insurance, all of it. You are paying for that. Then you're paying the landlord's profit, on top of it.

This call feels fake.

Good question and good answers!

I bought at age 55. It was a miracle. Much better than renting. And a 2.62% interest rate. True miracle

Imagine not having a mortgage to pay then you can retire early. Yes I realize you still have to pay property taxes and your monthly expenses but if you're a minimalist you can get by with that working 20-30 hours a week 🤷

There are plenty of scenarios (like now) where the cost of renting is less than owning a house. Historically, stock market returns are higher than real estate. Even with real estate, REITs are much more diversified than one house.

I highly recommend a condo. Our condo has an amazing board and management team we own our unit and we pay about $1000 in HOA but it’s like living at a resort and it’s way cheaper than rent. We bought it cash . often the maintenance is happy to do minor household repairs for a very affordable rate, we absolutely love it

He’s acting financially savvy but can’t comprehend the benefit of owning a home instead of renting forever? Weird call.

I rent a house out to a 60 year old permanent renter. His wife just moved out and he can barely afford to live there. What I charge him is way less than similar properties. I consider it a ministry at this point. He is a train wreck waiting to happen. Life long renting is a horrible decision. You condemn yourself to poverty in old age. STUPID!!!! My wife and I own 4 homes, some by default and 3 are paid for, including the one we live in. The 4th is a small mortgage that will be paid in 2-3 years. Buying should always be the goal.

Thank you for your research. I find your videos are well done. RIght now I'm keeping an eye on Eledator

As a land lord, I love this type of guy!

I would never rent long term.

I actually rent because i want to maximize my wealth. I never understood paying a mortgage with an interest rate of 4% on an asset that would only increase in value 2-4% on average yearly. If you take your mortgage down payment + the extra cash you save each month (because renting is cheaper monthly) and just put all of that into the market earning 8% yearly, you will almost always make more money over 30 years when compared to owning a home. The leverage you get from real estate is only valuable for rental properies where a tenant is paying your mortgage. If youre living in the home, you won't see many gains.

I work in the rental industry and I see this all the time. Just had a tenant get a settlement and instead of buying real property like I suggested (he asked me), he bought 3 vehicles. So living in small apartment is that person's plan I guess. I'm sitting here at age 40 with a paid for home I constantly work on. No rent/mortgage is so freeing! And the equity is a big bonus.

Let me tell you how I live in a $2 million house that I got for free. Now you might think that this is an inheritance. Or maybe some sort of unusual event like winning the lottery. Maybe even think I’m going to describe a scam here. It’s none of those things. About 10 years ago I bought a home for approximately $650,000.. I sold my previous home and use the proceeds for the down payment, using a mortgage for the rest. At the time the rate was 3.5%. Obviously better than now. Since then I paid off that mortgage early. I did pay interest cost until that mortgage was paid off. And of course I pay taxes every year. And yes, there are repairs. Lawn care, painting, power washing, all the stuff. But when I bought the house, I knew I had the money to pay for those things. So they didn’t break me financially. I could’ve bought a much more expensive house, but I chose not to because I wanted to have enough money on hand to pay the mortgage down early and to, pay all the associated costs without too much stress. I’m not sure exactly how much money I have paid for the house, the mortgage, and the upkeepcosts. But I’m very sure it’s well under $1 million. And as I said, the house would now sell for about $2 million. So I lied when I said I got the house for free. I got the free house plus $1 million. Because houses are usually in appreciating asset, in a very real sense they’re often free or better yet cheaper than free. But it is important that you be able to afford the costs. It won’t work if you can’t make the payments. It won’t work if the house is ruining your life because it’s causing so much stress for you. You need to buy below what you can afford. That’s not easy to do in today’s market. Maybe it’s impossible for many people. But if it’s an option for you, it is way better than renting.

I’m kind with dude. I do want to build wealth though. But I like renting. I don’t want to buy a big ol house or really just a house in general. We live in a 6 bedroom 3 bath house sitting on 15 acres right now we’re renting for $1,200 a month. But it’s so much responsibility between the rent and how much we have to constantly clean. We’re moving, buying a $35,000 trailer, and we’re gonna pay it off fast so we don’t have a mortgage at all. Plus the cleaning is gonna go way down because it’s a smaller place. Less responsibility.

No body talking about taxes and insurance on the house changing the mortgage payment every year

I'm really liking the longer videos you guys have been putting out over the last few weeks. The 7-10 minute calls allow you guys to dig deeper and shed more light on the situation versus the 4 minute calls you guys have traditionally done.

You definitely have my sub. This content is next level. For me Eledator was the turning point. Please keep doing what you do and keep being you, love it.

Homeownship isn’t the only path to wealth I think the caller is confused saying “he doesn’t want to build wealth”. By investing 15% of your income into retirement you are building wealth

I'm favoured, $22K every week! I can now give back to the locals in my community and also support God's work and the church. God bless America.

Owning a home means cost of living stability and we can see that with rent increases in the last 4yrs. I own a house and a small cottage on the property. Within the year my cottages rental income will pay 95% of my mortage and taxes. I'm still 20yrs from retirement and will be socking that money away for 20yrs.

I live in an older apartment complex that is well maintained but doesn't have some of the luxury goodies that are in more modern places. My rent is very affordable and that allows me to put money aside each month that I would not be able to do to buy a house here that would be nearly twice what I pay now.

Rent is the most you'll pay per month. A mortgage is the least you'll pay per month.

I have owned homes before, I have rented the last 34 years. Due to the rent crises I just bought a house in Florida, new construction. I am debt free with a 12 month emergency fund. My wife and I are on s/s and the monthly nut is taken care of and then some. This is peace of mind, nothing beats that.

Ken called in with a voice modifier from the studio with a great script while eating his burrito special.

I would add you don’t have to start with a house that fits your wants. Start with something smaller that fits you true needs. Then you have more buffer room.

I totally understand why many are not buying right now. But if there is any way you can, you should. I bought my house in the early 2000s on a 30 year fixed mortgage. Just over 20 years later, required monthly payment on a 3 bedroom single family house with 2 car garage is less than a studio apartment. Because my income went up but my "rent" did not, I'm not only able to save more, I am making double payments to the mortgage now, and I still have fun money. Yes, I had to replace a roof, the HVAC twice, and other minor things over the years. I'm still so far ahead of those paying triple what I do on the same size house. When I retire, I will have zero "rent" payment. Just taxes and a cheap HOA fee. If you never buy you will never escape that huge monthly cost.

Living in a house is so much better than living in a an apartment.

Renting sucks when you get older. Buy a modest place.

Buy a condo or place where maintenance and yard work is included in your dues.

This is a good question articulated poorly and answered poorly by Rachel but well by George. Some of the value is you gain equity on the bank’s money, yes, although today’s rates erode that greatly, but the real value is you lock in a major portion of your living expenses. 5-10 years later rents have gone way up and your payment is the same.

40 😂😂😂 , i wish I could have bought a home back in the 2010s but I was n first grade, now I’m 20 and have closing day on the 28th

Renting is stressful too, they can decide to sell, up the rent, or the owners want to move in. You have to pay for damages that you might accidentally cause, or you get lousy landlords who won’t repair things. You can also have a housemate in your own house to make extra money if needed.

Well I pay right at or under 1k per month owning. But the AC got killed by a storm that set back was 5k. Now I'm upgraded to coverage with the power company

Online and on youtube there are folks that compare renting vs. Buying. Renting, if you invest wisely works out about the same as buying a house.

They are totally wrong…renting is not throwing money away. As long you invest the down payment and the difference of rent and mortgage and also…you aren’t paying maintenance on a home. I bet if you accumulate money saved and invest it will produce you enough cash flow or interest that it will pay for your lifestyle/rent. If rent prices double then there’s bigger issues of home mortgages going much higher because of property, taxes, and insurance. The fact is rents, will always be cheaper than a mortgage. But people say that’s why you pay off your house… Well, you still have property tax insurance to pay and Maintance. And by the time you can pay off a home that money could’ve been invested in the stock market, making you money with less hassle.

I guess it all depends where you live. Some places it makes sense to just rent like in LA where houses are astronomical (you can’t find one for less than 750k) whereas in other states it makes sense to just buy like AZ, NV or even TX.

Renting vs ownership depends on where you live. If you are in NYC, renting might be the best option such as a rent controlled place, or if it is a fraction of trying to buy a property. In other places, it might be better to own a home, if you can maintain that home. You can build wealth while renting too. I rented for 10 years in NY before I purchased my first home and was putting 50% of my net income into investments while renting, so it is possible to build wealth while renting.

A mortgage fixes your housing line item in a way that renting just doesn't. A landlord can raise your rent every year (or more!) if they want. Yeah you still have tax increases, but that gets passed on to you when you rent anyway, so it's really not that different.

At 40 unless if you don't pay it off in 15 years or less you may not live to see it paid off in 20-30 years. So you may not live long enough to benefit from owning. But you will spend those years maintaining that property. I've always thought buying was overated unless you can buy it outright.

7 years ago when I bought my house my mortgage was £850 and rents were £1,200. Now because I've overpaid and got a slightly lower interest rate my mortgage is £525 and rents are £1,650. It's a new build so I've probably spent £300 in maintenance. I've replaced some fence posts, boards and a arris rail, a leaky coupler under the sink and a couple of flushvale seals.

Once I calculated what it would cost to live in an apartment versus my house. When I annualized the costs of major repairs, interest on my mortgage, higher costs for electric and gas, it looked like I could afford 4 times the space in a house as I could with an apartment for the same amount of money.

Thank you, Rachel , that makes perfect sense but what about for a single person who does not plan on having children, ever, and whose career has you moving every 4 years? Wouldn't renting be a better option?

Very much an oversimplified approach to real estate. Carrying and transaction costs in real estate are real. Monthly payments given recent increases in many markets are often double compared to rents, especially with interest rates where they are. Biggest advantage to owning a home isn't really the investment, it's the stability which is especially important if you have a family.

Hi if you rent if the stove, refrigerator ,washer and dryer goes out it's on them if you buy it comes out your pocket