You have a Flashlight addiction when:

And did you have money left for another house?

Who wants a house anyway? If I’m not planning to stay for decades, it costs less to rent. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

huh?
I don’t know what country your in but trading a house for renting is not cheaper, however if you did spend mega bucks on your flashlights… :smiley:

Heh, I did the math last night on the overall gain/loss from owning a house for 13 years (after figuring in the money received at closing), and even with a decent payout it was still a slight net loss compared to renting for the same time period. At least, for this particular instance, the monthly cost ended up just slightly higher than a rental. Not a huge difference though.

As for the light, it wasn’t really that big a purchase… but it happened right after closing so I thought I should share. :slight_smile:

So how does your landlord make a profit then?

I’m assuming you moved from a larger place to a smaller one, or into a different city or somewhere with lower building prices

He doesn’t sell, he keeps renting it…

I didn’t do more than brief experiments of chatting before Internet service became unlimited time. But, around that time, I heard about people losing their houses to pay phone bills.

me confused

When the postman arrives at work and everyone in the office says “that looks like a torch sized box” and points in your direction!

When you’re too embarrassed to open your package because everyone is curious what you ordered but you know it’s your 8th flashlight in the box.

I have to admit this is the strangest one so far, i can’t fathom being embarrassed when receiving a flashlight

When at university you talk to your machine shop professor about titanium and he laughs when he learns it was all about building a flashlight…

Oh, if you pay off the whole mortgage, or buy a multi-plex, the rental price is enough to make a profit. But individual houses around here aren’t profitable to rent out while they still have an active mortgage, since the monthly fees plus maintenance are more than the going prices for rent.

Only 8 flashlights! How do you keep from hurting yourself when you trip in the dark?

So your saying the cost of ownership is much lower after the house is paid off, but if you always rent it will never be paid off

You're a flashaholic when you get a package and have no idea what's in it .

When a repairman comes over and notices about 15 torches on my hutch[less than half my collection] and he says, wow look at all those flash lights!

Even though it is day time I give him the numbers[lumens/throw] for most of the lights and a demonstration down my semi dark hallway!

This happened a few days ago when I got my new dryer!! lol!!!

OK, so me explain :slight_smile: You do know that there are closing costs, loan initiation fees, maintenance, taxes, interest, maybe paid points, maybe paid association fees to think about too. Plus, an assumption that the house will actually increase in value instead of stay the same or decrease to account for/pay for before you can actually “come out ahead” of renting within less than 10 years usually? On top of that, if you are not staying there forever, when it comes time to sell, the cost must have appreciated enough to cover the costs of listing, and hiring a real estate agent, (and don’t forget probably paying taxes on the appreciation) can be paid for without incurring a loss when you sell? So, there is always a required time period of ownership before owning is actually “worth it” if you take the actual expenses into account.

So, if you aren’t selling soon, or you aren’t paying much interest, it becomes easily profitable to rent it out, but not a smart bargain for those not staying very many years.

I agree, i assume a house will never appreciate in value because cyclical trends are unpredictable, I assume it would be worth the same as it it today (inflation adjusted). If it does appreciate then thats a bonus but i won’t count on it because you cannot predict trends
By selling your in for a world of fees like you mentioned, and same for buying, around here the mantra is less then 5 years your better off renting.