8 reasons why you shouldn’t bother buying a home

Earlier this week, NPR had another bleak, the-world-is-sooooooo-fucked-up-for-young-people article about how millennials aren’t buying houses like previous generations (forwarded by Andrew Brown, yr an adult’s moral conscience). They explain this trend by rehashing all the other bad news millennials are faced with; there aren’t any jobs, credit is impossible, real estate is either prohibitively expensive or in regions with no economic prospects. Also, since millennials are sooooooo entitled and want the freedom to pick up and move whenever they feel like, they’re not even thinking about owning their own home. It’s depressing news, which is why I felt compelled to look on the bright side, to help you, dear reader, to consider it a blessing that you’ll probably never be able to afford you’re own home. Below is a list of reasons why you shouldn’t bother owning a home, because it mostly sucks. Don’t say I never made you feel better. .

1.)   Owning a house is, like, a job in itself. Every Sunday is another trip to Loews for new fixtures or appliances. If you live in an apartment and you have a shitty kitchen, you just have a shitty kitchen. And your life is pretty much the same as it would be after you could have spent $50,0000 and 700 hours making your kitchen awesome. Think about it. What do you want to do this weekend? Watch Prometheus, go get drunk in the park, watch Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Final and play ‘Cards Against Humanity’? Or do you want to get in an argument with your girlfriend/boyfriend in the drapery section of Home Depot?

2.)   When the zombie apocalypse (or vampire apocalypse, or Mayan 2012 apocalypse or the Rapture) happens, owning your own home ain’t gonna do shit. It’ll be martial law and hell on earth and nothing will mean anything, much less your property deeds.

3.)   Let’s face it. In America, there’s only like a dozen or so cool places to live. And in those places, there are only a few neighborhoods that are actually worth planting your roots in. But you can’t afford any places there. You could buy a home in a suburb of San Jose. But why would you do that?

4.)   Soooo much paperwork involved.

5.)   Once you own your own home, every time you throw a party, you’ll wince whenever some scratches the floor or dents the drywall or gets a puke stain on the far side of the bathroom (which, admittedly, how the fuck did they even do that?). Then, eventually, your apartment will become a Japanese style house, with a strict shoes off policy. And then you’ll decide to only have people over for dinner parties. But really, you’re still only one red-wine stain on the carpet away from just never having people over at all. And that will suck.

When you’re renting, those stains/scratches/broken fixtures only mean you might not get your deposit back. But lets be honest. You’re not getting your deposit back.

6.)   You’re probably gonna be a millionaire eventually, right? Once someone invests in your idea for an iPhone app you can use to quickly scan tap water quality, then the app blows up and gets bought by Brita (or whatever your get-rich-quick fantasy is), you’ll be completely set. You can TOTALLY wait until then, because all that is SUPER gonna happen.[1]

7.)   Let’s say you’re married. Well, statistically, you’re probably going to get divorced. And then that house you spent all that money and time on will get sold and split and will be a huge headache, reminding you of all the shitty decisions you made after you turned thirty. Doesn’t sound so great, does it.

8.)   Someday your parents will die. You can just have their house, right?

So there you have it. Hopefully this list helped soften the blow of learning that buying your own home is harder then ever. Also, I realize some of you may have beaten the odds and already boughten your own home . If you’d care to yell at me or tell me all the awesome things about being super in debt that I’ve missed, you know where to find me. yranadult@gmail.com