You Can't Afford To Buy A Home!

I live in San Diego, CA one of the most expensive cities in the U.S. The average price for a 3 bedroom rental is between $2500 - $3500 a month depending on the neighborhood.

Now compare that to a 3 bedroom home bought for $450,000 with a very modest down payment of 3.5% and a monthly HOA of about $300 per month. That gives you a mortgage payment of roughly $3500. The same payment as the higher end of renting a home.

And yes, as of the date of this article, there are homes for sale in San Diego county that fit the above description. Also note, none of them are Mobile homes, some are listed for less than $450,000 and many of these homes do not have HOA payments. Which all of these factors will make your mortgage payments even less than $3500 per month.

Why then are there so many people convinced they can not afford to buy a home when they clearly can?

There are a few reasons for this:

1. Some of these homes may be in more rural areas and people do not want to commute or change school districts. So they say it's unaffordable to buy. However this is not an affordability issue but an issue of not wanting to move out of the area they are comfortable with.

It's important for me to note that rural areas also have great school districts and jobs nearby. Exploring buying homes in rural areas can be the key to homeownership and building generational wealth for many people.

2. We live in a society where we need one to have the other. Meaning, we can't have landlords without tenants. Therefore the narrative of home unaffordability is spread, to help keep landlords in business. If this narrative seems far fetch to you, then I encourage you to research the marketing company N. W. Ayer & Son who created the narrative around buying diamond engagement rings to boost the sales of diamond. A practice that is very well known and still done to this day. Narratives are created all the time to brainwash the masses into doing or not to doing something. Which is why thinking and researching for ourselves is so important.

What better way to create more tenants than to brainwash people into believing they can not afford to buy homes. As an important side note, many landlords pay HOA payments out of their pockets and do not include it in the monthly rent payments. They do this to keep the rent payments lower. If rents were higher it would then cause more tenants to start to think more about buying their own home.

Landlords recognize this and would rather pay a portion for you to live in their property short term. Knowing in the long term, you are paying off their mortgage thus creating generational wealth for their own family.

By the way, I do not have any prejudices towards landlords, I am a landlord myself. I'm just 100% against the very apparent disparities in homeownership rates, between races and classes.

3. Similar, but less nefarious, than my previous point. You believe what you are told by friends and family instead of doing the research for yourself.

When I talk to people about home affordability, people typically start off by telling me, their family members or friends said it's too expensive to buy a house. They don't tell me about the research they've done on their own to find out if they can afford to buy a home.

Our well meaning family and friends tend to tell us what they know about their own personal experiences. Unfortunately some of us tend to become brainwashed by other people's situations, instead of doing our own research.

We must remember home buying is a very personal experience. Just because someone near to you couldn't afford to buy doesn't mean you cant. They might have more debt than you. There issue may not be affordability, but instead a credit issue or a down payment issue. Worst they might not have even tried for themselves, but are also listening to someone they know and further spreading the false narrative of home unaffordability.

If you enjoyed reading this article and you want to read more articles on, Real Estate: All The Ways You're Being Brainwashed.

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