Two New Blogs

The point of this blog was to get me back into the habit of writing daily. Alas, that has not panned out the way I intended with my posts here being a bit sporadic to say the least.

And yet, I do write every day now!

I'm either writing for my clients, working on my novels, or now blogging on specific topics.

That's right. I'm launching two new blogs, that I hope I will post in at least three to four times a week, if not every day. They are more focused than this blog, aimed at specific target audiences and exploring variations on themes. I'm hoping that will enable me to start building platforms from which I might launch some future works.

In the meantime, they're great opportunities for me to write every day and explore things I think about a good deal.

The first is "A Sane Libertarian." In this blog I will discuss a good deal of politics from a highly educated, highly interested libertarian perspective. I didn't spend four years in college and three years in grad school to never talk about politics. And since the topic is verboten at most social gatherings, I'm going to commit to writing about it. I've got a Masters in Political Theory and American Politics from the University of Virginia, I've run a political campaign for the US House of Representatives, and I keep up with politics by reading way too many blogs and news sites. Time to make my experiences work for me.

The second blog is called "A Writer's Recipes." The first post basically sums up why I'm doing this blog: I have to lose about 30 pounds for my sister's wedding in order to shrink my well-endowed top half and fit into the bridesmaid's dress that is apparently discontinued and the last size they had.... *RAGE* .... Since I have a relatively sedentary lifestyle as a writer and I really hate to exercise--I don't run unless someone's chasing me--I aim to keep my daily caloric intake below 1200. This means modifying recipes and trying out new ones to keep from getting bored. Salads every day are unacceptable in my house, especially since my husband doesn't eat them. In this blog, you can follow my experiments, successes, and failures as I change my eating profile and hopefully my physical profile as well!

So that's that. I hope you will consider checking them out! Let me know what you think of them, and if you want me to tackle any particular topics in either of them.

Renting Versus Buying

Sadly it's been too long since I've posted anything. I could easily use the excuse that I was out of town for my one year wedding anniversary (woot!), but that is a disingenuous excuse. I didn't go out of town until this last weekend, and I've had plenty of time both before and after that to post anything. I swore I would do better with this attempt at blogging (and husband scolded me for not updating), so mea culpa. Renewed efforts and all that.

So I've been pondering a major debate for all newlyweds and young professionals, and thought I would do so transparently and systematically here. I've been debating the age old question of whether tis better to suffer the slings and arrows ... no wait, wrong venue. Whether to rent or buy. Yeah, that's it.

You see, my husband and I are have been living together for about four years now. (Quick math majors, how many years of living in sin? Riiight.) We've moved from the top two floors of a house to a two story townhouse to a large two bedroom apartment. To some this may seem like we're moving backwards; you're supposed to move from tract housing to condo to townhouse to house, right? But we've maintained roughly the same rent--if anything it's gone up-- and square footage--from 950 square feet in the house to 1,400 square feet in the townhouse. We've lived quite comfortably with progressively nicer amenities and locales. I think we've done quite nicely.

Lately, though, I've been feeling pressure from my family and others to start looking into buying a house. After all, it's the buyer's market! We should be stocking money away so we can buy a cute little home to have our babies in.

I feel the allure. I do love living in a house with land. I want a fireplace and a front porch and a driveway and a backyard. I want the space to live without worrying if my high heels on the floor are bothering my neighbors. I want to be able to blast the music without having to worry about waking up the toddler next door.

My hesitation is whether we need to buy a house to get what we need. I think renting a house provides all of the benefits without the drawbacks of home ownership. Consider this article: Economics 21 Renting v. Buying. The article discusses that while the perception is that, beyond being the "American Dream"-- I thought that was starring in your own reality show or getting a gold medal or becoming president--home ownership actually holds fewer actual benefits than purported. We might get mortgage tax benefits and the like, but in the end, the overall economic benefits of home ownership fail to trump the benefits of renting.

While the common wisdom is that renting is just throwing money away, when you could be "investing" that money in home ownership, the truth is, both schemes involve handing money over. Consider that even if you buy a house, unless you are buying it directly with cash, you are always renting in some capacity: "The choice is between renting the property directly or instead renting the capital necessary to buy the property." The majority of the money you pay off on your mortgage, toward "home equity", is just an "added expense that renters don't have."

And that home equity is not the only added expense that home owners have. They have to pay for all repairs out of pocket, and all services such as gas, water, and trash pickup are added expenses each month. Most rental companies will include these services and repairs in the price of the rental. Home owners also must usually buy all of the appliances in their home, whereas most rentals include these with the house. Further, few homes provide the amenities that apartments or even townhome rentals provide, such as pool and gym access.

So why buy? If you want to live in a house, why not just rent? The costs-benefit analysis on a purely economic scale favors renting, unless you can pay outright or are likely to stay in the home far beyond the length of the mortgage. So why do so many still buy their homes?

For me, I guess it would be the sense of being settled, of finally fully belonging somewhere and having it belong to you. Any changes you make to the property are fully your choice and responsibility. You are less likely to pull up roots and move. You have more of a sense of security (assuming you can make the payments continuously and don't have the threat of foreclosure over your head as so many do these days).

What else? Why do so many of us want our own homes?