Rent or Buy a house (assuming you can afford both)?

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If you think a lot of people will move to where you live, buying a house should be a good investment.

If everyone is leaving, buying a house isn't such a great investment.

Where I live the my house is worth now 200,000. A modest increase of 50,000. But the traffic through town is worse.

Another thing to consider is that if you rent, chances are that your apartment will be connected to others. Depending on the specific set up & where your apartment is located, you could have an apartment on two sides of yours, across the hall, directly underneath, or directly over or a combination. That could be a problem especially for us Aspies cuz we can have sound sensitivities & noises from our neighbors may bother us more than NTs would be bothered by them.

My first apartment was in a neighborhood that while not a ghetto, was well below average and I lived in a massive 12 story building: only once in three years was I bothered by noise. My second apartment was in a better location and again, just one noise complaint. I have since moved into a nice detached house (far beyond what I could ever afford on my own) in a good, sought after neighborhood. To make a long story short, behind me was a around 25 year old @$%^head who loudly cursed and screamed and had loud parties until 6am every weekend (parents must be deaf, dumb and blind) and the next door neighbors 18 year old daughter had very loud parties on their deck until 2-3am. It got so bad I had to get the cops to visit them to finally shut them up. So far this year it's been heaven but I would have never imagined this would happen in such a nice family subdivision.

My wife and I have already decided when we move next (hopefully the final time) it will be to a house where I can't see any neighbors at all, surrounded by trees.

I guess it can depend on the neighbors you have. We live in a townhouse apartment that has real thin walls. Our neighbor on one side plays heavy bass a lot & it's sometimes so loud we don't wanna be in our living room. Politely asking him to turn it down doesn't work & we had a property manger for a while who didn't give a sh!t. Slight side note with that property manger was that our refrigerator broke rite after that guy started & it was literally 10 days before we got a new one. One advantage to living in an apartment that jimmy mentioned is that the landlord or property manager is responsible for fixing things. However depending on your landlord/property manger that could potentially take a long time. If we would of owned our place & our fridge broke that looked as old/worn as ours, we would of went look at fridges the next day & bought one in stock from somewhere that would come in within the next couple days. Anyways getting back to the noise issue, we have a new property manger now who actually seems to care. She sent our neighbors a note a few months ago giving them a warning & telling us to let her know if we hear it at all again. They've been complying for the most part except on holidays & we might could still hear it some of the rest of the time but it's low enough where probably most people wouldn't really be bothered by it which we can live with. It's much better than how it was before we told her cuz it had gotten so loud that we could hear it upstairs in our bedrooms during the day & we still didn't wanna be downstairs at night when the noise ordnance went into effect; we couldn't hear it upstairs at night so it was lower but still way too damn loud. We heard it loud this 4th of July thou & thought it was just cuz it was a holiday but we also heard it Friday the 5th & Saturday the 6th. We know some places were acting like Thursday July 4th through Sunday the 7th was a 4 day holiday so we thought we'd give our neighbors till Monday. We don't wanna be dicks, we don't expect the world to accommodate us cuz we have sensitivities & other issues, they should have a rite to enjoy their music & TV but within limits, plus we don't wanna get them evicted cuz he has a 10 year-old daughter that he yells at aLOT(I know she's 10 cuz I heard him yell that out recently when he was fussing at her). A lot of people would of found that bass loud thou. We heard the bass loudly again last Thursday which I think was the 11th so me & my girlfriend felt we had to contact the property manger again. She didn't say much except that they shouldn't have the right to disturb us like that. I have heard the bass some last weekend but wasn't as loud & was tolerable so we can live with that if it stays that way. Maybe they just needed another warning. My parents live in a nice size house with some yard & things are much quieter than living here. Traffic isn't as loud cuz the house isn't nearly as close to the road as our apartment is & the house was well built(my dad works in construction & did a lot of the work himself), it's brick. Our apartment is just wood & over a hundred years old when we moved in. My parents neighbors would throw parties sometimes but we only really heard noise when we were outside. Me & Cass are trying to move & we're on waiting lists but that takes time.

It also depends on what renting is like in your state or country. In Australia, renting is the pits. You have very little security of tenure. Leases typically run for six to 12 months and you're always terrified you'll have to move because the landlord will want the property back or they will raise the rent beyond what you can afford. As a renter I have had to move three times through no fault of my own. On top of that, in my state the landlord or real estate agent can inspect the property every quarter.

The constant invasion of privacy and lack of security is awful even for non-Aspies. For me it's no contest - I will buy as soon as I am in a position to do so.

I'm renting, but will buy my own place as soon as I can. It's both a relatively safe investment (as long as I don't choose a bad area or one that goes down in value for some unlucky reason) and a necessary thing that, in the long run, will be cheaper than renting. Sure, it's more work than living at a rented place, but I'm not afraid of having to learn new stuff when I know for sure it's going to benefit me.

I love trees, they sound and look so peaceful. I'm glad you're doing well.

I think it depends a lot on your lifestyle, to be honest. Are you the type of person that gets easily bored?

My husband is the one with ASD, and I'm so so glad we rent. Something breaks, I call the maintenance crew.

My husband can not cope with the unexpected and dealing with people. Houses are all about s**t breaking and either you fixing it or calling around for quotes etc.

People underestimate taxes, utilities, outside upkeep and little piddle things. On a good calm day, Jay is totally reasonable about discussing house stuff. When our basement filled with raw sewage, he decompenstated so bad, he melted down in his office. The whole thing totally overwhelmed him, and he shut down.

I was salty at the time that I had to deal with the workers, tossing out things covered in yuck and make the magic happen. The older he gets, the worse his coping skills are.

I can't do it all, and at the moment everything is falling on me. (various things, various reasons). A true house is a lot of daily upkeep.

I think a person on the spectrum could own a house, but you really need to be honest on how much effort you can throw at it. I have no one to take some of the burdens off. A house doesn't mean that much to me for the extra effort.

Man....dealing with raw sewage in your basement....would overwhelm anybody!

You, Tawaki, were certainly brave, and it's understandable that you would be upset about the situation.

Oh, I just saw this thread was started in 2019, before the housing market went nuts and it became so difficult to buy.

I'd like to own a condo and started looking over a year ago, but there wasn't much inventory in my area and I kept getting outbid. Now that mortgage rates have risen so sharply, I'm just about priced out. Guess the market has to correct itself someday, but with how unpredictable these last few years have been, I really don't know what to think. May very well wind up being a renter for life.

Guess I sorta lucked out with this one. You know, a caravan-tier human here that got taken in and made heir to something he'd never have seen without that highest of charity. Sure, I help, I've helped, maybe saved (just all things that a son should do), but it's a little too fortunate for me, and I'll continue to guess that my luck won't hold; maybe all the bad luck can be offset by some good luck now and again.

I guess I'm lucky in a way that my conditions don't affect my ability to maintain and manage it. Autism is not much bother for me in this context, as it's all on me, my own time, even the things that spontaneously happen, it's still under my control as I busily make my plans and new routines to get it all sorted. I don't like spontaneous phone calls (outside of ambulance or whatever because I'm a different person in emergencies), but give me several minutes and I'll figure out the verbal communication I need to use and I'll get by. Language disorder being my problem in these matters.

I actually quite like home ownership. I feel for you and your husband having to deal with his meltdowns due to the problems that come up.

I've owned and lived in a number of properties where I am in Australia. I've actually found dealing with maintenance no big deal. When renting you have to deal with a property manager who is separate from the landlord and getting stuff done to keep the place in good repair has more dramas than a soap opera. Overall I find being an owner occupier less stressful as I get to DIY what I can without dealing with useless real estate agents/property managers and an ongoing game of Chinese whispers. When I need to get a tradesman in I can choose them, vet them and when the work is done to my satisfaction pay them to leave. As a financial choice I prefer owning as well. I can own and live in a place, insure and maintain it to my satisfaction and every 8-10 years it doubles in value.

And the biggest plus for owning over renting is that you have security of tenure. At the end of a 12 month lease you don't have to pick up and move out or renegotiate another lease.

Give me owning over renting anyday.

In the short term. In the long term, it costs way more. If you plan on living in the same place for a decade or more, it's way cheaper to buy a home.

Even with paying people to come in and fix your things for you, homeownership is way cheaper long term.

I think your right in general Ettina but there are some factors that can make renting potentially cheaper long term. If you run into major bad luck down the road & face a big lawsuit, or get divorced, or have financial problems & need to file bankruptcy; you might have your home taken from you & end up homeless. Whereas if you've been renting & always paid your rent on time in full, your landlord shouldn't be able to suddenly cancel your lease & kick you out. I've known some people who've had bad luck like that & things might woulda gone smoother & been cheaper long term if they had been renting. I've also known people who've lost their homes due to natural disasters like hurricanes & flooding. Some had homeowners insurance but their insurance suddenly went belly up then or wanted to pay as little as possible & they were forced to sell for next to nothing because it woulda cost more to fix their place up than they had bought it for.

I have not decided yet.But you come out way ahead reinntg if you invest the difference in the stock market because in gerneral housing only appreciates about 1 percent to 2 percent a year where as the stock market is 7 to 10 percent a year on average.Thats just one consideration.I would for sure buy a house over renting if it was on a ranch.