Renting vs. Buying a Home: What People Get Wrong
Why Hacker News recommends it
Recommended as detailed math on rent versus buy, showing the choice is often roughly a wash.
What it is
Ben Felix argues that common beliefs about renting versus buying are wrong: homes are not great investments, mortgages are not a wealth hack, and ownership does not reliably bring happiness.
Recommended by 3 HN commenters across 3 different months, 2025 to 2026.
What Hacker News said
Recommends zahlman · 2025-08 · on “Google: 'Your $1000 phone needs our permission to install apps now' [video]”
Sure, but that's demonstrably more to do with the actual financial position than the ownership status. If you own the house and no longer pay a mortgage then you're ipso facto wealthier — although you presumably do still pay property tax. During the period of the mortgage, while rent wouldn't necessarily be cheap, it would be cheaper than the TCO of the house. The overall financial consideration is complex and pro-ownership dogma is just dogma: see e.g. [this video] . More importantly in my opinion, though (and especially for single childless people), rental housing is available in smaller and finer-grained quantities.
Recommends whymarrh · 2025-09 · on “My thoughts on renting versus buying”
You’re right, the math is slightly more complicated than rent v. mortgage payment. Ben Felix, a popular financial YouTuber, made many a video about the math: [this video] [LINK]
Recommends throw0101c · 2026-05 · on “The Cost of Owning a Home”
Ben Felix, a Canadian portfolio manager that does personal finance videos and podcast, has been arguing for years that rent versus buy is often a wash financially, and that you should make the decision for non-financial resasons. * recent 2026 video: [LINK] * 2025a: [this video] * 2025b: [LINK] * 2021: [LINK] * 2019: [LINK] The 2019 video goes over a handy "5% rule of thumb": start with the purchase price of home, take 5% of that: if your rent is less than that, better numbers-wise to continue renting (and investing the difference); if your rent is more, probably better numbers-wise to buy/own. The company he works for created a tool to examine the numbers: * [LINK]
Cites apsurd · 2025-11 · on “How wealth dies”
C. it's the only one that has you in the arena. There's no guaranteed outcome, but money itself is a team-sport. I'm a simple man myself, so I'm answering in order to verify my own reasoning. A. will have negative returns from inflation. D. defends against inflation but is too conservative. B. There's arguably negative value in holding more equity in terms of opportunity cost since you already have > 200% position in equity. source: I believe this guy [this video]