[datacruncher01]

One thing to keep in mind is even with a fixed-rate mortgage you're still facing increasing costs throughout the loan in the form of property taxes, insurance, and maintenance costs. Based on the housing market appreciation, I believe my future property taxes will be about the same as my initial mortgage payment by the time I finish paying off the loan. Then factor in the increased costs to fix and update things? I think I was better at saving money back in the apartment days.

[wbl]

Prop 13 in CA caps the taxes: they grow at 1% as long as you own

[surajrmal]

I think you mixed up the numbers. It's capped at growing property value evaluations to 2% a year and counties may only set a property tax at 1% of assessed value. Of course that's only for the ad velorem portion of property tax. My city has fairly high fixed tax components (one of which scales by property square footage) which puts me currently 1.4%, and I expect that to increase over time as the fixed components to my property tax don't seem to have any restrictions. For homes of lesser value I'm sure the fixed costs dwarf their ad velorem components.

[shortcake27]

I mean yeah, renting is cheaper from a cashflow perspective. But you don’t end up with a multi-million dollar asset in 30 years.

[SirMaster]

If you keep investing in something like multi-family realestate you should easily have well over a million in assets after 30 years.

These assets would be generating cash flow, but you could sell them for a lump sum if you are OK with all the taxes.

Selling and buying another property allows you to do it without incurring such taxes.