Home owners: For me, my primary residence is mainly...
- ...an investment. (15%, 21 Votes)
- ...a place to live. (85%, 122 Votes)
Total Voters: 143
This poll was active 05.06.2012 through 05.12.2012
Rate this post:
00
Recent Comments
- ray pepper on Knife-Catcher: Year Two Recap of Tim’s Home Purchase
- whatsmyname on Poll: If I had to choose one, I would rather…
- whatsmyname on Knife-Catcher: Year Two Recap of Tim’s Home Purchase
- The Tim on Knife-Catcher: Year Two Recap of Tim’s Home Purchase
- Charlie Rogers on Knife-Catcher: Year Two Recap of Tim’s Home Purchase
Friends of Seattle Bubble
Recent On-Topic Forum Posts
- The Tim to Audacious Flips and Renovations: Hah, I've got a new one for this thread. The...
- Patrick Bateman to Has 'Flip This House' jumped the shark?: When the average cost of homes was going up, any...
- jillayne to Detrimental Listing Photos: Oooo nice picture of the dead animal. Makes me...
- minitheden to Detrimental Listing Photos: This was the houses primary listing photo....
- jillayne to Detrimental Listing Photos: I don't know whose listing this is. It's not a...
More of an investment, but I needed a place to live too. Edit- I would have to think about this too hard to figure if I what I just said makes sense though. Maybe very long term investment. :-)
Rate this comment:
0 
0
RE: toad37 @ 1 – Assuming you voted, I think you voted wrong! ;-)
(Currently the voting is 11-0 as a place to live.)
Rate this comment:
0 
0
It’s mainly where I watch TV.
That and at 24 Hour Fitness if it’s something on cable…which I don’t have.
Rate this comment:
0 
0
It baffles me when I see anyone in the R.E. industry trying to separate these two factors.
The answer is always, without exception, “both.”
It’s not even something you can carve up as “oh, it is x percent of one, and 100 minus x percent of the other.” It’s both, and that’s just not how people subdivide real-world decision making.
You’ve done polls about what kind of place to live people look for (good schools vs. walkable vs. etc). So why not do a poll about what kind of investment people want in a home? e.g. 1) maximize potential profit, 2) minimize potential loss, 3) minimize total interest, 4) maximize liquidity, 5) maximize ability to resell, etc…
Rate this comment:
0 
0
RE: robotslave @ 4 –
> The answer is always, without exception, “both.”
If you’re lucky enough to have BillG’s money, perhaps this might be an exception :-)
Rate this comment:
0 
0
I wonder if Tim had run this 5 years ago if the results would have been significantly different?
Rate this comment:
0 
0
RE: robotslave @ 4 –
Exactly; though people may be scaling back their expected return (even to zero), a home purchase should be looked at as an investment and as part of one’s overall investment portfolio. Perhaps “A place to live” can be the primary motivation, but I’ve always also looked at each home purchase from an investment point of view. I need to understand how can I maximize return if I need to sell and how will this purchase impact my ability to invest in other parts of my portfolio, such as equities.
Rate this comment:
0 
0
Whenever I’ve looked at homes to buy intending to occupy them, I’ve never thought about how much money it would bring me when it came time to sell. What was much more important was whether I could easily afford it, that it wouldn’t tax me financially, and that it was comparable or lower than what I could rent a place for.
Much as I like being a homeowner, I wouldn’t do it if it meant making a major financial sacrifice or taking a major risk. I am just not one of those folks who buy these expensive houses that they can barely afford, and become slaves to them.
Rate this comment:
0 
0
when u choose to BUY and NOT rent its ALWAYS an investment. Unless your millionnaire Mike..then its stupidity and denial..
Rate this comment:
0 
0
RE: ray pepper @ 9 –
Geeze, Ray- Mike’s is bigger than yours. Get over it.
Rate this comment:
0 
0
I’m very impressed by the mind set of your readers.
Rate this comment:
0 
0
I’m seriously hoping that too much of the down payment I’m making it isn’t lost over the next 10 years. But where I live is primarily my residence and not my investment.
Rate this comment:
0 
0
We’re Entering a New Paradigm In Real Estate
If we asked this question 5-10 years ago, many more would have said investment. Do you have any old polls Tim?
I do find it illogical that one blogger feared losing his down payment with price degradation. Isn’t it a moot point [unless you're underwater and you simply hand the keys back to the lender]?
Lost principle and/or lost down payment is still a crummy investment, and is meaningless to separate them, after the home is theoretically sold [if the selling price is less than the purchase price].
Rate this comment:
0 
0
RE: softwarengineer @ 13 – I think it’s an irrelevant point unless you’re at the point where you would be considering selling.
Rate this comment:
0 
0
I chose “a place to live” because I bought a house when the costs of ownership were roughly equal to my costs of renting, and I picked the house I did because it was the kind of house I wanted to live in and in the neighborhood I liked. I do consider my house a significant portion of my financial assets, however, so I did make sure the arrangements were such that I wouldn’t take a significant loss anytime soon.
In general, I get a little glassy eyed when people talk about maximizing their personal investments, including the money they’ve sunk into their homes. I have a wide variety of diverse investments, and while I think some of these are likely to be higher return than others, I don’t fuss endlessly about maximizing my returns. I try to keep in perspective that the easiest way for me to increase the likelihood of having more money in the future is to save more money now, rather than try to squeeze out better performance here or there.
I think this whole focus on investments rather than savings as the path to financial security has steered a whole bunch of people wrong in the last twenty years. If more folks had relied primarily on frugal living to build their assets rather than chasing after the latest get-rich-quick fad, the stock and real estate bubbles would have been a lot smaller and fewer people would have gotten crushed financially.
Rate this comment:
0 
0
I think you need a “both” option. Buying a home is the largest investment people will ever make and sometimes while they are picking a place to live they think ahead and think of the market value as well. Both things are taken into consideration when buying a home.
[Sales link removed by Tim. Read the rules.]
Rate this comment:
0 
0