re: #458 Gus 802

True. But the idea used to be to buy a home while you’re young and then you have a nest for when you retire. Once you get into renting you’ll have to keep on renting during retirement and on a very fixed income for most. If in the case you have to buy a modest home in NJ and pay 7500 in property taxes then you’ll limit who can buy those homes. This is not considering the grossly inflated (and they’re still inflated) prices of a home.

Through dumb luck, we were forced to buy a home in Northwest NJ, and moved away after 7-8 years. Because of the cost and tax difference, we were able to buy and pay off our house a couple years before retirement. That’s the “ideal” pattern that made us middle-middle-middle or better in retirement. The hidden cost is living in the No-Deli zone.