Cupertino, CA. December 1 -- How did you prepare for the decision of whether to rent or own? Mitchell Levy, President and founder of Myth Breakers helps you approach this issue from a rational perspective in his new book "Home Ownership: The American Myth." With the goals of 1) breaking the myths of home ownership, 2) putting a "rational" approach back into home buying, and 3) stopping renters from feeling like second-class citizens, Levy forces the reader to reevaluate their attitudes toward home ownership, renting, and saving money.
The days of blindly purchasing a home and walking away with large profits are over. After doing your homework, opportunities can and do exist to make money in real estate. However, this takes time and energy that a lot of people are not prepared to spend.
As a society, we need to revert to the reasons we purchased real estate 20-30 years ago. We purchased a home as a place to live, making money on the "investment" was secondary, if thought about at all. In evaluating a home purchase, it is important to consider both the financial and emotional reasons to own a home.
The book and spreadsheet (also available from Myth Breakers) help the reader understand the financial reasons by integrating examples from Silicon Valley, CA, Boston, MA, and Detroit, MI showing the financial implications of renting versus owning. The 160-page book also includes an appendix that examines renting vs buying for over 25 metropolitan cities.
The results indicate that without "reasonable" real estate appreciation, in most areas of the country, one will save money by renting and saving the difference versus owning. The reader needs to determine whether a "reasonable" amount of appreciation will occur for their particular situation. After looking at this decision from a financial perspective, the prospective home owner needs to determine their emotional reasons to purchase. Quite often, the emotional reasons are more important than the financial ones. In these cases, a decision may be made to purchase a home even if the financial reasons dictate a decision not to purchase. In either case, the decision of whether or not to purchase a home was approached rationally.
![[Home Page]](../images/knight_h.gif){kind=small}
[Books] [Bronzes] [Real
Estate] [Music] [Store
Fronts] [General Services] [Newsletters]
[Writers]
[Debt Consolidation]
[Adult Education]
[Resumes] [Non Profits]
[Catalog] [Site
Map] [Info/Cost]