Why Buying a Home Might Be a Bad Investment

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Why you should not buy a home. People who have been listening to us for a long time know that we are perpetually defying conventional wisdom here at Markowski Investments and The Watchdog on Wall Street Show. I’ve written about home ownership, the benefits of home ownership, and also the downside to home ownership. The problem is that.

People are more often than not sold a bill of goods by some entrenched interest. I don’t know, real estate agents to real estate lobby, which happens to be a pretty powerful lobby, to say the least. they push a lot of things, like for instance, government sponsored home insurance that they have out there, just so people, rich people, can have inexpensive home insurance and live on the water. I call it

Yeah, I I call it welfare for rich people. That’s just one of many things. the idea out there that everyone should h own a home. And you you’re having that happen right now. This bill that’s being debated in front of Congress. we have a home ownership bill. Who could be against home ownership? That that could be like who could be against women and children?

One’s against home ownership. What we’re against is subsidizing home ownership. Anytime you subsidize anything, the price of that thing is going to go up. I don’t think we should have a Fannie. I don’t think we should have a Freddie. I don’t think the government should be involved in any of this stuff. Quite frankly, I like to go back to the days when, yeah, you know what, we had a lot of local local banks, and they were the lenders. They knew the property, they knew you.

You put 20% down and you bought a house. Now we’ve got this ridiculous asset inflation, and no one wants to bucket. No one wants to bucket. President of the United States, you know, this people have got all their value in their home, and I don’t want those prices to go down. people think I’m nuts when I talk about here in the program that would love to see real estate prices go down so it becomes more affordable. But it’s not, it’s not just the price.

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of the home. It’s the upkeep. It’s the upkeep. many young people out there, they don’t factor this in because they’re told, yeah, by own a home, it’s a wonderful investment.

Maybe. Maybe not. this article came out this past weekend in in the Wall Street Journal, and my jaw dropped. My jaw dropped. Yeah, people actually they saw it. Hey, Markowski, they’re starting to listen to you. something we’ve talked about for some time. title of the article is See How Owning a Home is Getting More Expensive in Every Way.

Yeah, my funny story, side story. My my wife, sh she wanted us, we live in the state of Florida now. she loves Long Island in the summertime. I like it too, but it you know, she didn’t really see all of the things that were involved in keeping up a home there and and all of the costs that were involved. It it was it it’s getting out of control.

And you know, when we sold our home and we sold it for quite a bit more than what we bought it for over a short period of time. And so wow, what we did really well. I’m like, babe, you you don’t understand all of the money that we put into this place on a regular basis and and maintaining it and taking care of it. That’s a factor. Whereas the reality is, I can look at my portfolio, you know, Tim Cook.

Tim Cook hasn’t sent me a bill for my shares of Apple stock since I’ve owned it. Going back to Steve Jobs before. That’s it’s different. and you need to understand that. Most people, quite frankly, don’t. But anyway, they’re talking about the increases right now, home ownership costs, and this is inflation. And this is this is the inflation that isn’t calculated in the government.

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Reports. this is this is going back, this is seven years, 2019. actually, they they got 2025 numbers. 25, 2019 to 2025. the home ownership costs. principal, the principal payments are up twenty-two percent. Interest payments are up thirty-five percent. Property taxes are up.

31%, which is one of the the greatest rackets out there. here is another news flash to many people, to many people, and it’s still hard to for people to get their arms around this. In the United States of America, you don’t own property. I pay my house free and clear. No, you don’t. You don’t own your house free and clear. You stop paying your property tax bills.

your fearless overlord, the lord of the manor, the people running the kingdom will come and take your house. You, when you own or buy a piece of property, D all stuff, you’re just buying land usage rights. Okay. I have my home. I have my home. I have my piece of property. That property, I can do certain things with it based upon zoning. Okay, I can’t.

Can’t turn my can’t knock my house down and and turn it into a car wash, let’s say. I can’t turn my house down and turn it into a grocery store. It’s zoned residential, okay? And I have certain rules, the size of the house I can build, all everything that that that goes within that. I’m buying land usage rights. As long as I continue to pay, long as I continue to pay my ridiculous property taxes in the state of Florida, they’re astronomical.

I I can live on that property, use that property based upon those land usage rights. That’s it. I don’t own crap, do I?

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I don’t know how listen, like I said, compare. I’m going to compare it again to my stock in Apple.

Nobody’s coming to take that. Come and take that. That’s mine. That’s mine. I own it. Your property? You don’t. Technically, you don’t. Anyway, what else is going up? Property insurance up 72%. And again, this is based upon locales. It’s different in different places. you know, people actually, I’m I’m shocked that, you know, my property.

Property insurance in where I live in Florida, I’m at, you know, above where the flood zone is. It’s it’s not bad at all. Other people, not so much. Here’s one for you.

Home maintenance up eighty five percent. you you think you’re going to avoid that? You’re not. You’re not. the old member forrest gump running any steps in a pile of shit happens sometimes. Yeah, it does. It does. emergency repairs up 175 percent.

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Total annual bill on average up 39%. Surprise me in the slightest. real estate agents aren’t telling you this. Hopefully, hopefully, you young young people listening to this, hopefully you have some parents that are advising you and pointing you in the right direction. again, one of the the biggest trends that I’ve seen.

That I’m seeing is Gen X parents like myself, many others, helping kids out. I mean, re helping kids out, making down payments, helping them buy homes just because it’s how expensive things have gotten. I again I I caution younger families out there, I know. Okay, they embed this. You gotta own a home, gotta own a home, got a home. Okay, yes. If you are

If you are secure in your career and your job, okay, that you you can make you can make that jump. Okay. Issues today and the way the economy, so you talk about the the technology and AI and jobs and movement and all of these various different things, that plays a part. That plays a part.

You know, sometimes you’re gonna you might have to, depending on what you do for living, have to move to where the jobs are. And the the the costs, the transactional costs that are involved with buying and selling a home are astronomical, from the real estate agent fees to various different taxes and all the other government crap that they throw in there, title insurance, all this BS that they hammer you with.

Yeah, yeah. And I I’ve I’ve laid this out for people. You know, you let’s say you own a home. wow, I may I own my home for 10 years and I moved. 20 years and I look at how much more money I made. Did you? Did you factor in? Factor in the interest on your mortgage. Okay, I know you get that little bit of a tax write off. did you factor in all of the upkeep and the heat and the electricity? It’s a bill.

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Okay, the sooner you recognize it’s a necessity of life and a bill and not this wonderful investment, the better off you’re gonna be. And you’re gonna make better choices. You won’t be tricking yourself into stuff. Okay, you want that new kitchen in the home. Yeah, my kitchen needs to be updated. Okay. Updated. Okay, updated, but don’t tell yourself.

That it’s good, this wonderful investment where you’re gonna get your money out when you sell it. You’re not. Okay. Doesn’t work that way. Be smart. And again, I’m in the business again, like I said, I try to keep people from doing stupid stuff. Also, go along with that, you do stupid stuff, you can tend to make yourself miserable. Okay. You don’t want to be house poor. Watchdog.

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