It is true that mortgages invariably cost less than rents. And I paid rent for many years and was in pretty much the same condition as you and many others. Crappy, over-priced apartments with landlords outright refusing to correct health and safety-related issues, commodes that always backed up and became un-flushable after every heavy rain, part of the ceiling dropping into the living room, a closet- where I happen to have stored much of what I'd written in college in the pre-computer days- a lot of valuable work lost, roaches no matter how clean I kept my apartments... For renters, the problems never end, no matter one's age.

Four years into a five year lease (on the house with the commode that couldn't be flushed after a heavy rain) I wasn't given a notice to move within sixty days so that the house could be sold. Housing prices were rising fast but I couldn't see that house bringing the huge profit the landlord expected. I argued and pointed out that I had eighteen moths left on the lease and my rent was always paid on the first, every month. But as it turned out, any lease longer than one-year in Virginia is only enforceable for that one year. The landlord had known that but never informed me when I signed the five-year lease. Sadly, my partner's father died the same month I was given the eviction notice and he inherited part of his father's estate so we finally had the money required for a down payment and my good credit score allowed us to house hunt. Now I pay less than half my previous rent and live in a small, but infinitely better house (at least the toilets flush when it rains).

I wouldn't give up this house for anything.

I would never wish the death of anyone just because I needed money, but that death came at the right time.

Now I feel guilty to have even thought that.

The house I bought had just come onto the market that week and would've sold quickly so we were lucky to get it.

Although, now we're the ones paying for appliances when they break or repairs to the house. It seems owning a house means there is always something to replace or repair, but at least it's my house to repair. But I'd never trade those expenses for having to pay rent. I wouldn't have it any other way.

I feel like the universe was helping me at every step: if I hadn't been evicted when I had and we hadn't inherited enough for a down payment when we had and my credit score hadn't improved more than I'd expected then we wouldn't have found this house and be paying a mortgage at less than half the rent of the last (and overall, pretty crappy) house I rented.

I hate to engage is schadenfreude, but the landlord tried but failed to sell that house and is now renting it to someone else. With the rent I was paying, he had a sizable income from it on time every month. And tenants able to pay their rent on time every month are difficult to find, but that's his loss and my gain.

It's horrible that so many people work pay check to paycheck with little, if any, way to save money when we live in the wealthiest nation in history. There can and should be solutions to people never being able to own their own home and I sincerely hope the generation after mine will bring the solution needed.

In a nation this rich, people shouldn't have to receive an inheritance just to own their own home. It's a moral crime that badly needs to be addressed.