Cold Feet - Investing for Retirement

[maxtower]

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My recommendations: Right now, I think the most pertinent thing for you to do is to STOP renting. Renting is worse (IMO) than buying a brand new car (depreciating asset) because you're throwing all of that money away.

I've been in my property for a full year now (it took living with the parents for 5 months to build up enough savings) and already it has appreciated 17% (Seattle).


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This advice is incorrect. Buying a brand new car is easily a worse financial decision. The decision to rent or buy a house depends on a lot of things.
A lot of areas of the country (including Seattle) have experienced great appreciation over the last few years. Buying now would be buying at peak prices. In many markets (not all) you could be exposed to dropping home prices over the next year or two. Best case is that home prices remain flat in some of these places. This has been discussed on the board many times, so I won't go into that more here.
There are other factors to consider. Renting in many areas is actually cheaper than owning. You don't have to worry about maintenance or property taxes when renting. Another reason to rent could be that you plan to move soon. Buying and selling a home is very expensive once you figure in closing costs and realtor costs. You need to plan on living there for several years to make up these costs. If you need to move before then you could be losing money if there isn't enough appreciation.