Romana King’s book House Poor No More is a comprehensive collection of useful knowledge for all aspects of owning a home, including detailed lists of home maintenance tasks, improvement projects, and much more.  The writing is upbeat and engaging.  To the author’s credit, she quantifies the costs of just about everything.  Unfortunately, this book was written just before interest rates shot up, so several numerical examples look like they are from the “before times” (only 9 months ago).  As has been common in our society for many years now, the author is too positive about taking on large debts.  Those who took on far too much debt while ignoring the possibility of interest rate increases are now facing significant pain. Some Positives As a long time homeowner, I thought I had a good handle on home maintenance.  However, King’s comprehensive list of home maintenance tasks covers many areas I know little about.  The many things to check and possibly re...

Moshe Milevsky thinks that many homeowners should have rented. In his book, Your Money Milestones , he makes many good points to support his conclusion. However, there is a compromise choice that may be better than either typical home ownership or renting. One of Milevsky’s arguments comes down to a correlation between wage risk and the investment risk in owning a house. If a big local employer leaves town, people lose their jobs and at the same time see the value of their houses drop. Another of Milevsky’s arguments is that houses represent too high a percentage of the typical homeowner’s net worth. Having all your money tied up in one house is similar to having your entire portfolio tied up in one stock. Milevsky does discuss some of the benefits of home ownership. There can be social benefits to having stable neighbours who help each other. To this I would add the benefit of not having to interact with a landlord. I don’t see this as a binary choice. A compromise that...

The Wealthy Boomer did a piece on the financial habits of homeowners and non-homeowners. The piece quotes from a survey that concludes that homeowners are more financially fit . This study is reasonable as far as it goes, but the conclusions confuse correlation with causation. Among Canadians who own a home, 65% pay off their credit card balances each month compared to only 48% of non-homeowners. This and other statistics leads Genworth Financial president and COO Peter Vukanovich to conclude that “homeownership helps people focus on their financial situation and get their fiscal house in order.” The idea is that buying a home somehow makes you better at managing your money. This last part is a theory based on the correlation uncovered by the study. Another theory is that people who cannot manage their money well are less likely to buy homes. Personally, I find this theory more plausible. Maybe there is some truth to both theories, but the statistics do not prove either one....