Many people feel like homeownership is drifting out of reach. This was a topic of a recent article by my friend Mike Parrot and a follow up by yours truly. I was also on Joe McClane’s show recently with Michael Hichborn talking about this. I promised to write a follow up article with practical ideas, and this is it.
To review: Prices keep rising. Rents keep rising. Groceries and gas keep rising. Meanwhile, your savings account earns close to nothing while the money supply expands and the purchasing power of the dollar shrinks.
In other words: we are likely living in an inflationary environment for the foreseeable future.
That has two big consequences:
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Waiting has a real cost. While you “take your time,” home prices, rents, and construction costs often march upward.
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Assets beat cash. In inflationary periods, people who own real assets (like real estate) are generally better protected than people who sit in cash and hope.
In an inflationary world, your rent will go up.
Your grocery bill will go up.
Your insurance will go up.
The one thing that doesn’t go up once it’s locked in?
A fixed-rate mortgage payment.
So this article isn’t about waiting for the perfect rate or the perfect market. It’s about finding a realistic, ethical, legal way to get into a “you close, you own” position sooner rather than later.
Everything below is a true ownership strategy—no rent-to-own gimmicks, no vague promises. For each option, we’ll walk through:… Read the rest