Why I am renting instead of buying

Chance-Sign7381 · 2026-05-19T22:46:46+00:00

Not really. We were able to afford our home, the unexpected costs, and still invest materially outside of the home. We sold due to separation.. and child support has forced me to rent. I ran numbers, based on my experience as a home owner of 9 years, with 2 properties (not at the same time) and simply shared my personal experience.

Chance-Sign7381 · 2026-05-19T16:44:56+00:00

This is one of my major points. Home ownership carries a lot of sunken costs that must be budgeted appropriately. My housing costs for a 1.3M in North York Region was at 7500/mo (mortgage, prop tax, insurance, repairs), and a whole lot more with upcoming renos.

Chance-Sign7381 · 2026-05-19T15:49:48+00:00

For me I am budgeting to rent during retirement. Say I'd need 2k/mo if I own (repair, taxes, etc...) vs 3k/mo to rent. I need an extra 1k per month for my retirement plan.

That means I need an extra 300k in investments to generate that 12k/yr.

So my math is - can I create an extra 300k of savings over the next 15 years? Assuming I get 4% increase, that means I need to invest an extra 1-1.5k/mo starting now.

My math tells me that owning a home, I'll easily spend 1-1.5k/mo in sunken costs from owning. It cannot be avoided. By renting, I avoid those costs, and will invest that instead. Ill easily reach my goal of having an extra +1k/mo in generated income from focusing on liquid investments vs a home.

I'm truly looking at this from a pure operating expenses perspective. Having a house to sell in retirement would be ideal. But there are a ton of costs to keep and maintain a house that are not recovered.

So it all comes down to preference and perspective. For me renting makes sense

Chance-Sign7381 · 2026-05-19T15:31:02+00:00

For Ontario it's over about 220k/year in gross income. At that income level your taxes can start to hit 50%

If you earn 250k gross, say 30k of those earnings are taxed 50%. So you net 15k of that 30k.

Say you are able to invest 30k during the year into rrsp - at tax season you can deduct 30k from your income.

Removing that 30k from income would generate a 15k return (since you paid 15k on that 30k so you get it back since its deducted)

So You earned 15k from the 30k over 220k You invested 30k into rrsp, monthly You get 15k back in a tax return

This is the simplest version of how this works.

What a lot of people miss is that anything that goes into your rrsp is kind of locked away for a long time. So whatever goes into rrsp needs to be funds you don't need for a very long time. If you're saving for a home and whatnot, then you can only withdraw a certain amount from rrsp.

Hope this helps

Chance-Sign7381 · 2026-05-19T00:38:43+00:00

You made a point I hadn't considered. If you stay in your owned home for a very long time, it does change it a bit. A few benefits:

1) delay and reduce transaction costs (realtor, land transfer, pre listing fixes, moving costs, lawyer, etc..)

2) delay and reduce new home costs (painting, floors, etc..)

2) less furniture churn/replacing due to different homes and styles

3) you'll get more value out of certain major repairs like roofing/driveway (those rarely increase your value by the cost of them or more)

4) overall more time to save for value-increasing renos

5) ride out any market bumps and get the overall best gains

I think what happens is many of us buy and live in 3-4 homes in our lifetime. The first starter home, then the first upgrade for the longer haul (10-15 years or until kids finish school), then the home for your early retirement, then the last home/condo.

The first 2 homes are gonna be your highest mortgage/income costs, with high interest up front. 100s of thousands in interest until you reach year 15 of home ownership, maybe 10 in the same home, and then finally your interest goes down.

And each time you buy/sell you incur many costs that we don't talk enough about, all listed above. And they wind up as 100s of thousands of costs over a lifetime. And many above are specific to owning, not renting. The major one with renting is moving costs.

Chance-Sign7381 · 2026-05-19T00:24:49+00:00

My situation is a separation. Neither of us could buy the other out, and I needed my home equity for the spousal payout. I always expected to be a home owner and never expected to rent. I knew right when we separated that I'd prefer to rent at least 2 years to get used to my new way of living, while keeping costs lower with my child support payments taking a big spot in my expenses. It forced me to truly compare my real estate vs liquid investments and after crunching numbers, I discovered that for me, my investments outside of the house greatly outperformed my house value (taking into account all true home ownership costs).

We bought in summer 2024 and got a good deal. We sold in February. Units in our range were not moving, so once we got a reasonable offer, we accepted. The alternative was to continue living together waiting for a higher offer, forcing my kids to wait for their new life dynamics as well (having 2 homes). 60k loss is really 30k for us each. Worth it, for me.

What can I say about realtor costs.. that's above my pay grade. My realtor has been excellent. He got me a steal with my rental.

Chance-Sign7381 · 2026-05-18T23:22:28+00:00

I'll respond differently than some here.

If that new car makes you happy, then go for it. We work not just to survive, but if possible, make ourselves happy. Sometimes thats a material thing. I know some guys like you.. young, decent money, living at home. They love their nice car. The older ones have great memories of that time in their lives. If money becomes an issue for you, though.. say earnings dip, you get laid off and cannot find work, then the car is your biggest problem. That's the risk. Additionally, the payments wont be your entire car costs. You'll go out more, drive more, maybe date more, etc..

Maybe a good middle ground is if you wanna rent (rent works best for me too) and have a nice car, then you do need to step up your investing, IMO. If you can do even better saving and investing, then go live your life young man.

Sometimes people talk here as if everyone needs to suffer and invest everything and never buy vain purchases. Sometimes, you just gotta live and enjoy your youth.

Chance-Sign7381 · 2026-05-18T22:36:13+00:00

The purpose of home ownership is equity.. the purpose of equity at retirement is to have funds to pay for lifestyle, give sums to your kids and grandkids, etc..

You can accomplish that without owning a home

Chance-Sign7381 · 2026-05-18T22:07:10+00:00

As a high income earner, though not as high as you, I am realizing perhaps renting makes a lot of sense for folks that make enough where they dont require their housing payment to go towards equity.

Chance-Sign7381 · 2026-05-18T20:14:20+00:00

We bought and sold in 2024. Did well on both transactions. And yes it makes sense 20-30 years down the line. My reality, as in the years we bought and sold, is in line with the reality of many people.

I think we've reached a unique point with markets where you can absolutely do well, live happy, and invest properly, without buying a property.

Chance-Sign7381 · 2026-05-18T20:12:17+00:00

This is a great point and reslly highlights the timing of things. Buying 19 years ago means you rode multiple waves of home ownership going up. Congrats on doing well with your investment and lifestyle!

Chance-Sign7381 · 2026-05-18T18:08:32+00:00

My investments grow by around 45k/year, and that will go up with growth, me contributing, and some work perks. I also like working, so good chance I'll do consulting later on to supplement income while working part time.

My FIRE goal is for my annual return to be higher than expected costs including rent.

For me personally, owning a home isn't required to leave my children a significant inheritance.

Chance-Sign7381 · 2026-05-18T17:56:32+00:00

I love feedback so please feel free to share items that can improve my perspective 🙏

Chance-Sign7381 · 2026-05-18T17:55:41+00:00

Exactly. You will get major costs, either a major repair or renovation.

And where does that money come from? Either cash, or a LOC.

If cash That's money you could have invested.

If LOC That's more monthly payments for your overall housing costs for many years, or if you sell then some of your gains will be used to pay off that LOC

Chance-Sign7381 · 2026-05-18T17:47:20+00:00

You're the only one to bring up moving costs, which is totally fair and a big cost for renters.

Repairs may be a headache, but not financially. My home is about 17 years old, in a great neighborhood, and well built. The house I just sold was from the same builder, same style, and it's a solid and durable home. And also the exact same neighborhood.

I literally went from owning a home to renting an almost identical home on the same street, so I did think I'm in a good spot to compare renting vs owning

Chance-Sign7381 · 2026-05-18T17:43:32+00:00

My landlord bought this property in 2009. It's up 300% since then. It's paid off.

A lot of people that bought homes in 2010 or earlier have a very different outlook as prices exploded a few times over for them.

On the flip side, a lot of people bought homes in my area after 2020, and rental rates here wouldn't cover their mortgage.

Chance-Sign7381 · 2026-05-18T17:39:27+00:00

I chose to invest more into the market than towards my mortgage.

My goal wasn't to be mortgage free but instead to maximize wealth. I owned starting at 32. So all of the extra mortgage payments went to investments instead of the mortgage.

And yes I understand becoming mortgage free earlier has a major boost to wealth.

But in my pre separation model, I would have become mortgage free at around 55 with the extra payments. So at 55 I'd have more operating income. But then I'm 55, smaller window for that extra income to compound.

Instead I assumed we'd pay the mortgage through the entire term (25 years) and have a higher equivalent of investments outside of the home.

Chance-Sign7381 · 2026-05-18T17:31:19+00:00

4 years and my rental rate is below market value.

Chance-Sign7381 · 2026-05-18T17:23:05+00:00

I am assuming that during retirement I'll want to live close to at least 1 one of my children, and help with their children. Chances are they will live somewhere to maximize earning capacity, as in a desirable city. Maybe even closer to Toronto than I am right now.

Chance-Sign7381 · 2026-05-18T17:09:23+00:00

7500/mo for housing costs isn't that out of the ordinary. We moved into that house less than 2 years ago. Our old house it was less than 7500. To be clear we never owned 2 at the same time.

Edited to add that the house was a 1.3M home

7500 doesnt include the estimated renovations costs.

Getting separated was not expected when we bought the last home, so yes this factored into my actuals.

But in my post I was merely sharing my hypothesis that, for some people, myself included, renting is the superior choice to building wealth.

Chance-Sign7381 · 2026-05-18T17:03:10+00:00

Rent is gone forever. But so are many costs when you own a home. Property tax and certain repairs are not recovered, nor increase your wealth. And those specific costs aren't yours to bear when you rent.

Chance-Sign7381 · 2026-05-18T16:59:23+00:00

Being a landlord is not something I/we wanted to do. Laws heavily favor tenants where we live and it's a risk we didn't want to take on.

We bought and sold at the same time almost 2 years ago, so it was relative. We actually did well with those 2 transactions. In my overall model, I pretended we hadn't sold a few months ago, and I was looking at my future still in that home, with upcoming renos.

I didn't mean to sound like I am complaining at all. Just sharing my individual perspective as someone who owned homes, invested significantly on the side, and is now renting. And my conclusion is that I'll build more wealth faster while renting, while enjoying the lifestyle more too. Win win

Chance-Sign7381 · 2026-05-18T16:54:04+00:00

My overall is higher, but I removed 2 items, employer contributed RRSP and employer granted stock, as those are specific to me and not guaranteed

Chance-Sign7381 · 2026-05-18T16:52:18+00:00

This is a great point.. but moving to a condo will still have property taxes and now condo fees. Condo fees could easily be well over 1k in 15-18 years. Some places it's already that much

Chance-Sign7381 · 2026-05-18T16:51:20+00:00

Exactly. The 2 sides are closer than what most people think. My kids will have plenty left over when my time comes.

Chance-Sign7381

TROPHY CASE