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JonnytheMann
Joined: 01 Dec 2004
Posts: 337
Location: USA
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 Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2005 7:36 pm Post subject: |
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| dyak wrote: |
| You're missing the point. Since when is having a mortgage the same as buying a house? If i buy something i expect to receive it after i pay for it, not 30 years later and at 3 times the original price. Why can't governments lend money interest free? There's nothing stopping them and there'd be a hell of lot less 'first world' debt. A mortgage or any form of credit is a con, stop dressing it up. |
How on earth is it a "con" if you know beforehand how much interest you're going to pay? A con implies deception and graft, at least when I hear the word. Interest rates are at historic lows right now in the US. You are not going to pay 3 times over for a house. But even if you did pay 3 times over for a house, you're still going to come out ahead buying a house because of the appreciation of property, and because the price of renting isn't that much lower than a mortgage.
Let's say you buy said $100,000 house and end up paying $300,000 over 30 years. Said house should be worth over $400,000 at the end of 30 years, assuming 4-5% growth per year. That's actually a very conservative estimate on property value increase. Now let's say you live in said house for 10 more years before senility ravages your brain and you need to be sent to a retirement home. The house is now worth around $700,000. You sell it and you have $700,000! Factoring in the $300,000 you spent to get the house, you're still up $400,000.
Now let's look at renting. It's not that much cheaper than a monthly morgate payment. So let's say instead of $300,000 in 30 years, you pay $240,000 in 30 years for your apartment. Now add the 10 years extra where you could have been in a house with the mortgage completely paid off and you have $320,000 paid in rent. Now you're senile and commited to the retirement home. You have spend $320,000 on rent, and you have no equity.
Home = + $400,000
Rent = - $320,000
Difference of owning a home put you up $700,000. The faster you pay off that mortgage (buy buying used cars, etc.) and the longer you live in the paid-off house, the more and more money you make from owning a house.
If you don't want a mortgage, that's cool, man. I'm not trying to convince you to weigh yourself down with one. But even under bad conditions like in my example above, home-owning is always an excellent investment as long as you are looking in the long-term. And right now in the US, conditions are not bad. Interest rates are really, really low. You can get a fixed-rate loan so that your mortgage will stay the same even when interest rates go back up. It's a great bet to buy a place in a gentrifying neighborhood or somewhere that's on the up-and-up.
"A mortgage or any form of credit is a con, stop dressing it up." I'm not dressing anything up. I think credit is a great thing. If credit didn't exist, most people wouldn't be able to own homes, but with credit, almost anyone can.
"Why can't governments lend money interest free?" Because the children of the world haven't all joined hands and sung "Kum-ba-ya" yet. Once they do, the hearts of the governments in the first world will melt, and they will freely give away money to people without interest.
It makes absolutely no sense. If you had money, and you could invest it for a 8% annual return in some mutual fund, would you instead lend that money to a stranger interest free to be paid back over 30 years? Think how much money you could have had after 30 years @ 8% interest. It costs money to run a government and they can't afford to just give away money interest free that could be invested and turning a profit for the government. And by profit, I mean money that goes to education and social welfare programs, ideally! Hahaha ... more like the pockets of the corrupt, but that's life.
Ok, I guess I've said all I have to say on that. |
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JZer
Joined: 16 Jan 2005
Posts: 3898
Location: Pittsburgh
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| Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2005 6:16 pm Post subject: |
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Why buying a home makes sense for even the perpetual globetroter?
merlin wrote:
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| Of course if you plan on globetrotting your whole life owning doesn't make sense but if you plan to stay in an area for about 10 years it does. |
Owning a house makes sense for even globetroters. Let me ask those globetroters out there, do you teach english to travel the world? If so, there are other ways to live abroad without teaching English. Even if you love teaching English and want to continue, imagine if you were earning a steady $800 a month just to keep some numbers in order. What if you could make the same $800 a month that you are earning by teaching 120 hours a month in Thailand, Mexico, China, or just about any other Third World country. Well if you plan correctly you could work a while in Saudi Arabia, Korea, or Japan and purchase a rental property in the west. Then you could find yourself a good property manager and rent it out and once you pay it off you will have yourself a nice second income while you travel anywhere your little heart desires. Also you can use the rent money to pay on the morgage while you are paying it off. If you are single and very ambitious you could work in Saudi Arabia and pay $25,000 of your salary a year towards the morgage plus another $9,000 from the rent. You would be able to pay off $34,000 a year. |
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JZer
Joined: 16 Jan 2005
Posts: 3898
Location: Pittsburgh
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| Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2005 6:23 pm Post subject: |
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| This whole arguement about people failing after they return home from teaching EFL reminds me how there are people who have B.A.'s in English and work at Walmart while others become multi-millionares. Some people succeed in life and some don't. Some people don't succeed because they don't try, while others are just unlucky. Others don't have the right attitude and feel that they are entitled to more than they are! |
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JonnytheMann
Joined: 01 Dec 2004
Posts: 337
Location: USA
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| Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2005 7:02 pm Post subject: |
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| JZer wrote: |
| This whole arguement about people failing after they return home from teaching EFL reminds me how there are people who have B.A.'s in English and work at Walmart while others become multi-millionares. Some people succeed in life and some don't. Some people don't succeed because they don't try, while others are just unlucky. Others don't have the right attitude and feel that they are entitled to more than they are! |
I agree completely ... |
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JZer
Joined: 16 Jan 2005
Posts: 3898
Location: Pittsburgh
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| Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2005 9:55 pm Post subject: |
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| JonnytheMann, to add to the story I know a guy who received a full tuition scholarship to law school who now drives buses. Normally it is difficult to maintain the scholarship after your first year. Law schools tend to set the GPA for maintaining the scholarship at a point that is hard to reach so that they rarely have to give someone a free ride for the second and third years. So the guy I know only had a 2.5-2.9 the first year and quit because he no longer had a scholarship. Now he drives a bus and is not looking for anything better. |
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JZer
Joined: 16 Jan 2005
Posts: 3898
Location: Pittsburgh
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| Posted: Wed Jun 22, 2005 10:07 pm Post subject: |
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| Maybe this thread should be retitled "If you are moving back to your home country just because that is what you think grown-ups should do, don't do it". I think that if you are not fully committed to making it work back home that it will probably not work out for you. |
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Gordon
Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Posts: 5309
Location: Japan
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| Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2005 12:33 am Post subject: |
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| JZer wrote: |
Why buying a home makes sense for even the perpetual globetroter?
merlin wrote:
| Quote: |
| Of course if you plan on globetrotting your whole life owning doesn't make sense but if you plan to stay in an area for about 10 years it does. |
Owning a house makes sense for even globetroters. Let me ask those globetroters out there, do you teach english to travel the world? If so, there are other ways to live abroad without teaching English. Even if you love teaching English and want to continue, imagine if you were earning a steady $800 a month just to keep some numbers in order. What if you could make the same $800 a month that you are earning by teaching 120 hours a month in Thailand, Mexico, China, or just about any other Third World country. Well if you plan correctly you could work a while in Saudi Arabia, Korea, or Japan and purchase a rental property in the west. Then you could find yourself a good property manager and rent it out and once you pay it off you will have yourself a nice second income while you travel anywhere your little heart desires. Also you can use the rent money to pay on the morgage while you are paying it off. If you are single and very ambitious you could work in Saudi Arabia and pay $25,000 of your salary a year towards the morgage plus another $9,000 from the rent. You would be able to pay off $34,000 a year. |
Personally, I would like to own some property in my home country of Canada. However, I am not allowed to as a non-resident. If I owned property I would have to pay income tax on all of my earnings overseas. There is no personal limits for us that Americans receive on income earned overseas. Not very business oriented in my opinion in Canada. I really don`t have any inclination to buy land in Japan either. |
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JZer
Joined: 16 Jan 2005
Posts: 3898
Location: Pittsburgh
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| Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2005 12:42 am Post subject: |
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Gordon, thanks for informing us about the situation for Canadians. Keep up the good work  |
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merlin
Joined: 10 May 2004
Posts: 582
Location: Somewhere between Camelot and NeverNeverLand
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| Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2005 9:16 am Post subject: |
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Kinda makes all those liberals migrating north look a bit uninformed, eh?
We'll see how much they like Canada when they have to pay Canadian taxes from a Canadian salary, eh. |
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Henry_Cowell
Joined: 27 May 2005
Posts: 3352
Location: Berkeley
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| Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2005 5:25 pm Post subject: |
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| And they'll get Canadian benefits (material as well as abstract). |
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moonraven
Joined: 24 Mar 2004
Posts: 3094
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| Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2005 5:40 pm Post subject: |
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| And feel less ashamed of where they are living, too. |
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Henry_Cowell
Joined: 27 May 2005
Posts: 3352
Location: Berkeley
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| Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2005 6:14 pm Post subject: |
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<waiting for somebody to warn of the dangers of "socialised medicine" in Canada and point to the hordes of Canadians swarming across the border to partake of the U.S. corporate health-care industry>  |
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JonnytheMann
Joined: 01 Dec 2004
Posts: 337
Location: USA
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| Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2005 8:12 pm Post subject: |
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| <Waiting for a Canadian on Dave's ESL that can say one good thing about the US> |
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moonraven
Joined: 24 Mar 2004
Posts: 3094
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| Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2005 8:22 pm Post subject: |
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They are not obligated to say anything good about the US.
Nor should they.
[b]MOD EDIT[/b] |
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dmb
Joined: 12 Feb 2003
Posts: 8397
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| Posted: Thu Jun 23, 2005 8:28 pm Post subject: |
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| moonraven, i love your posts, but why isn't this site called eflcafe.com you are being a little harsh on Johnny. Recently on various ME forums people have been asking about IT jobs or accountancy jobs. OK we may know nothing about their fields but as teachers living abroad we can still give a little advice. Aren't we a 'caring helpful' profession afterall? |
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