Let's say Person A and Person B have €10k in cash and are the heads of 4-person households.

Person A buys a €300k house with a mortgage.

Person B buys ⅕ of a Bitcoin.

Now, suppose Bitcoin jumps 5 times from there, within 10 years, and houses stay the same.

Then Person B is holding the Bitcoin equivalent of €50k. He still doesn't have enough money to buy a house and he's been paying steadily-increasing rent for 10 years.

The other guy has been paying down his mortgage for a decade and even gets to write it off of his income tax. His housing costs never increase, he will eventually have it all paid off, and then he never needs to pay a mortgage or rent again.

It is. What it is.

Reply to this note

Please Login to reply.

Discussion

Even if the math makes sense. Doesn’t mean it’s by principle a good idea. One can also start selling illegal drugs, beat both of those, and become a tycoon.

In scenario 1, a person is a slave to a bank, in scenario 2, the person is free to do with his life as he pleases.

Of course the incentives are stacked to create slaves. One must choose his life wisely.

Person B is dependent upon landlords indefinitely and at steadily rising price, and Person A owes the bank for a time, for a fixed price and enjoying an income tax discount, and is then "home free".

Housing is not an asset like fine art because you can't choose to simply have none. You can only rent or own.

If one can’t afford to own, they rent. When you rent you are buying a service. Just like you buy electricity, water, and food.

You are not dependent on the landlord. It’s an equivalent exchange. He is dependent on you, just as much as you are dependent on them.

Market decides the value of this exchange. You don’t like the price tag you look somewhere else. Price is discovered and a fair value is usually achieved.

Yes, but what isn't priced into the rent is any lower quality of life. The worse neighborhood and infrastructure, the insecurity of not knowing if your lease will be extended or raised, bad landlords, higher running costs, etc.

We're renting and literally counting down the days until we can escape to our own property.

Once you start seeing the Rich Man’s Trick everywhere you can’t help but see how they keep slaves slavin’ away.

Just a small caveat: for the first half of the loan, person A is mostly paying off interest without making a dent in the principal.

Yes.

Maybe yes and maybe no. What is versus what only seems to be. Don’t forget about property taxes - backed by the State’s monopoly on violence. And, the person with the bitcoin can cross a border naked with his assets fully accessible while the house owner has to leave it and the land it’s on behind.

House owners tend to be people who have put down emotional roots, so that's already accounted for, in the first step (choosing house versus Bitcoin).

Good point.

I paid off our small house - and a piece of government paper says we own it. But we still have to pay $600/mo rent to the govt and rising. Housing costs increase every year due to rent increases and increasing cost of maintenance.

At least with a landlord you have a chance of seeing their face. There is something creepy about our faceless govt landlord.

Worse, half of the govt rent goes to genital mutilation of children (and the usual share for murdering babies).

Hmmm. Renters actually also pay property taxes, utilities, maintenance, and etc. They just pay off the other person's mortgage, as well, or give them profits, so they're paying significantly more.