Hi,
TL;DR: For anyone who’ve opted to not purchase a home and instead invested near equally into ETFs or some other form of investment, do you have any regrets if you were to do it again?
I’m at a crossroads currently. My wife and I are 31 and live in Vancouver. We’ve finally saved enough for a downpayment for a townhouse. We have 4 mortgage pre-approvals, an agent, and have visited many properties. At our current income level, we would be able to pay the mortgage, but our next 25 years would be a struggle.
Lately, the idea of renting and investing in ETFs aggressively over the course of 25 years instead. Renting would offer us more financial freedom in life, and we believe, in 25 years, the investments could potentially be worth more than the value of a home, all else being equal.
We’ve been searching the web and it seems like there are far more stories/material about people who’ve done this but are currently 3-5-10 years in their journey. We want to hear from those who are closer to 15+ years into their decision to rent/invest versus purchasing a home.
How are your investments doing? What did you invest in? Any advice if you were to do things again back at year 0? Any regrets or advice?
This is a huge decision for us, and we would like to hear stories from people who’ve gone down this route and how it has turned out for them.
Thank you and your input is invaluable to our decision!