A short YouTube monologue (Matthew Kelly) explaining why the speaker chooses not to buy a house. The speaker lists personal and economic reasons: uncertainty about long-term location, belief that property (especially in London) is a poor investment compared with markets like the S&P, and high transaction costs (stamp duty); they prefer renting and investing to stay flexible.
Like my parents ask me every week like when are you going to buy a house and settle down? I'm like well that's a classic like societal narrative if that's what you do when you can afford to and you're getting a bit older. And I'm like well I understand the argument around having a base but A I don't know where I want to live long term right now, B it's not a great investment compared to say the S and P or a lot of other things C there's massive stamp duty tax and actually property especially in areas like London is probably quite a bad investment in many ways right now because it's a large bubble in a lot of places. So like the extreme logic view would be well of course I just rent and invest the money and stay flexible, right? But people won't apply that thinking even if that's what they actually would prefer.
