Should you buy a house after making money? This is how the Chinese encryption community views it.

Do you want returns or peace of mind?

Written by: Deep Tide TechFlow

Buying a house has always been one of the main tasks in life. However, for contemporary people, buying a house has gradually transformed from an absolute main priority into a dilemma that requires long consideration.

For those who are financially well-off, whether to buy a house seems to be a matter that doesn't require much extra consideration. However, for those still striving, the high housing prices have made buying a home a matter that is 'not so urgent.' For the middle-income group that has a genuine need for housing, buying a home is often a significant life event that is both happy and painful. On one hand, obtaining the property title represents having a space that truly belongs to oneself, and the sense of security is self-evident. On the other hand, in the uncertain housing market, buying a home may mean having to endure ongoing losses—emptying several wallets to buy a house, only to wake up each day to losses. Faced with an unclear future, the question 'Should I buy or rent?' remains a timeless social topic.

As a crypto community that is highly sensitive to asset returns, there are also more radical viewpoints on heavy assets like real estate. Over the weekend, there were numerous discussions in the Chinese-speaking crypto circle regarding buying property, with various parties expressing unique perspectives.

1. The Non-Buying Housing Group: The returns from buying a house are too low, so don't buy!

Yuyue (@yuyue_chris): Choosing to buy a house now will only result in losses every year

This discussion originated from user Yuyue.

Yuyue indicates that, from the optimal path of asset planning, buying a house (especially non-essential housing) is not a good financial choice at present. Taking the current 4% interest rate on U.S. Treasury bonds as a reference, purchasing a house worth 10 million would incur a loss of 400,000 in interest in a year, whereas renting the same house would be much more cost-effective. Buying a house can only be considered a consumption choice at present, not an investment.

0xTodd (@0x_Todd): Buying a house is equivalent to leveraging 2-4 times to go long with the rate

"Buying a 10 million house, the actual construction cost does not exceed 10%, and the remaining 90% is all the option fees for the bullish options. Moreover, according to a rental-to-sale ratio of 2.5%, you are effectively losing 2.5% each year, which is 250,000 RMB in interest, not to mention the part where the RMB is printed more than the USD causing additional inflation disparity. Not to mention, if it is a loan, then the interest lost each year would be even more."

"If you buy a 100 square meter house for 10 million, in the same location, someone else can rent a 200 square meter house with the interest from that 10 million. Although buying your own house brings more happiness, the latter is larger. Or the latter could also rent a 100 square meter house, and the extra 250,000 in various expenditures creates wonderful memories that are simply more than the former, not less. Therefore, if you want to understand the act of buying a house, it is essentially a 2x-4x leverage working against the rate to go long."

More homeowners share their experiences:

User X @weishimaomao and @PlusTBV describe their feelings of "losing big on buying a house" based on their own experiences, suggesting that instead of investing heavily in real estate, it's better to spend money on one's own life.

2. Buy House Faction: Owning a house has different emotional value + asset value, it's worth it!

Ice Frog (@Ice_Frog666666): If conditions permit, buying a house by oneself can carry a lot of emotional accumulation

"In addition to bringing changes to the quality of life for families, a house can also carry and record beautiful memories. If the house is a villa with a large yard in the suburbs, this may be even more direct and obvious."

Especially when there are several little friends at home, this house may be their entire childhood, the place where all their happy moments from childhood to adulthood occur. This house will be like an invisible family album.

The house carries and records these warm moments, these warm memories that transcend time, and these accumulated emotions, which may represent a true form of inheritance.

Tang Tang (@lichuan679): Buying a house is asset allocation, and the mortgageability of self-owned property is underestimated

"Buying a house, although the one-time cost is high, is essentially a" forced savings + long-term holding of hard assets " . If you purchase a scarce property in a core location, the asset's ability to resist inflation and hedge against risks will be even stronger."

"Real estate, especially high-quality properties in first-tier cities, can still borrow low-interest funds from banks even under a systemic financial crisis. This is equivalent to having an additional 'big knife that can both attack and defend'. Behind this is actually the fact that the financial systems in China and many regions have a much higher credit preference for real estate than for other assets. This is not an issue of market efficiency, but a matter of institutional dividends."

"The 'temporary feeling' of long-term renting subconsciously makes people reject investment. This 'unstable atmosphere' will gradually affect your sense of control over life. A stable living rhythm = stronger psychological resilience + better asset holding capacity. It's not 'buying for the sake of buying', but understanding how to use the act of 'buying a house' to achieve a set of asset management systems. It is anti-consumption, lever optimization, counter-cyclical, and also part of the emotional immune system."

upzhu.eth (@bubblegold2): Real estate has more advantages in terms of asset preservation

"If we only look at the rent-to-sale ratio, renting is definitely more cost-effective, and the higher the luxury property, the lower the rent-to-sale ratio, making renting even more advantageous.

However, from the perspective of asset preservation, owning real estate has natural advantages, especially good properties in first-tier cities. Compared to the intangible assets in the cryptocurrency space, good real estate is not so easy or quick to lose value, and it can also generate cash flow from the bank.

So if you make money in the crypto world, you still need to buy a good house. At least in case one day you lose everything in crypto, you still have the house as a safety net, so you won't fall into poverty.

3. Mixed Viewpoint Group: Whether to buy or not depends on the individual, and only focusing on the yield may not necessarily be a good thing

SweetY (@shirleyusy): Buying a house can result in less loss than buying an NFT

"Looking at it from another angle, if the investment in the monkey land has lost 99%, then using the money from selling the monkey land to buy a luxury house in a first-tier city would at most lose 20%. When investment is forced to become consumption, it is better to just consume."

cryptoolddog (@CryptoOlddog): From a purely financial perspective, I don’t buy, but having a house in hand keeps me calm.

1. From a purely financial perspective, a house is a relatively poor financial product. If funds are tight, do not buy a house.

2. A house has emotional value, just like buying a luxury car:

Emotion 1:

You can decorate it yourself and buy some items to improve your life with the margin, such as a mattress that costs 30,000 yuan, and you don't have to worry about being kicked out.

Emotion Two:

The sense of security of living in a house, even in the worst case, there is a place to stay.

Emotion Three:

Defensive assets, cryptocurrency high-risk industry, when problems arise, in reality, there are also assets.

Emotion Four:

Marriage, dating, interactions with people around you, no matter how much you say, there is no substitute for that red book, which can reduce communication costs. It's just like driving a Maybach out; often, the items speak for you.

BY (@By_Web3): Housing demand is still mixed with human nature issues

For ordinary people, buying a house is not just an economic issue, but also encompasses life needs such as marriage.

TingHu (@TingHu888): Investment also needs to consider human nature issues, holding real estate is more stable than a all-in investment.

"Actually, it's very simple. When the proportion of the house in the total assets is not much, you won't consider this cost-performance ratio."

Many people sell their houses or mortgage them to invest, and the outcome is 99.9% disastrous. However, those who withdrew funds to buy houses, although they encountered pullbacks, at least preserved most of their profits.

Investing not only requires consideration of the profit-loss ratio but also the negative effects of human nature. It's better to be cautious when it comes to the uncontrollable greed of human nature.

Whether to buy a house or not is actually a very personal matter.

From the discussion content, all parties are using facts as examples to illustrate the correctness of their own viewpoints. However, from a broader perspective, the ideas of ⌈low property returns⌋ and ⌈having a house is very happy⌋ are actually two non-conflicting matters. Many people may not have thoughts about buying a house not simply because the property as an asset is "not good enough", but rather because the high housing prices and poor economic expectations are more significant factors.

As a necessity of life, whether to buy or rent a house is based on personal circumstances or perceptions. The economic strength is sufficient, and it is understandable to buy real estate as a consumer product without considering the rate of return; The economic strength is poor, and it is the right environment to do the right thing to relieve the pressure of life by renting instead of buying.

Simply ⌈determined to buy a house⌋ or ⌈determined not to buy a house⌋ should not become a form of political correctness.