Do you want returns or peace of mind?
⌈Buying a house⌋ has always been one of life's main tasks. However, for contemporary people, buying a house has gradually transformed from an absolute priority into a dilemma that requires careful consideration.
For those living comfortably, the decision to buy a house seems not to require much extra thought. But for those still striving, the high housing prices have made buying a house feel "not so urgent." For the middle-income group with a genuine need for housing, buying a house often becomes a significant life event filled with both happiness and pain. On one hand, obtaining a property title represents having a space that truly belongs to oneself, and the sense of security is self-evident. On the other hand, in an uncertain housing market, buying a house may mean enduring continuous losses, emptying several wallets to purchase a home, only to wake up each day facing depreciation. Faced with an unclear future, the question of ⌈buying or renting a house?⌋ remains a timeless social topic.
As a group highly sensitive to asset returns, the cryptocurrency community has more radical views on heavy assets like real estate. Over the weekend, there were numerous discussions in the Chinese crypto circle regarding buying houses, with various perspectives offering unique insights.
1. Anti-Housing Group: Buying a house yields too low returns, don’t buy!
Yuyue（@yuyue_chris）：Choosing to buy a house now will only lead to losses each year
This discussion originated from X user Yuyue.
Yuyue stated that from the perspective of optimal asset planning, buying a house (especially non-essential housing) is not a good financial choice. With the current 4% interest rate on U.S. Treasury bonds as a reference, purchasing a house worth 10 million yuan could result in a loss of 400,000 yuan in interest each year. Renting the same house would be much more cost-effective; buying a house currently can only be considered a consumption, not an investment.
0xTodd （@0x_Todd）：Buying a house is like leveraging 2-4 times to go long
“Buying a house worth 10 million yuan, the actual construction cost is no more than 10%, with the remaining 90% being the premium for a call option. Moreover, based on a rental yield of 2.5%, you are effectively losing 2.5% each year, which is 250,000 RMB in interest, not to mention the additional inflation difference from the fact that the RMB is being printed more than the USD. Not to mention, if it’s a mortgage, the interest lost each year would be even more.”
“If you buy a 100-square-meter house for 10 million yuan in the same area, someone else could rent a 200-square-meter house with the interest from their 10 million yuan. Although owning a home may bring more happiness, the latter option is larger. Or if the latter also rents a 100-square-meter house, the extra 250,000 yuan spent on various consumables would create more beautiful memories, not fewer. Therefore, it’s important to recognize that buying a house is essentially leveraging 2x-4x to go long.”
More homeowners share their experiences:
X users @weishimaomao and @PlusTBV express their feelings of “huge losses from buying a house,” suggesting that instead of investing heavily in real estate, it’s better to spend money on one’s own life.
2. Pro-Housing Group: Owning a home has unique emotional and asset value, it’s worth it!
Ice Frog（@Ice_Frog666666）：If conditions allow, owning a home can carry a lot of emotional accumulation
“A house not only brings changes in quality of life to a family but also carries and records beautiful memories, especially if it’s a suburban villa with a large yard, which may be more direct and obvious.
Especially when there are several children in the family, this house may represent their entire childhood, the place where all their happy moments occur, making it like an invisible family photo album.
The warm memories and emotional accumulation that a house carries and records over time may represent a true sense of ‘inheritance.’”
Tang Tang（@lichuan679）：Buying a house is asset allocation; the mortgageability of owned property is underestimated
“Although buying a house has a high one-time cost, it is essentially ‘forced savings + long-term holding of hard assets.’ If you buy a scarce property in a core location, this asset has stronger inflation resistance and risk hedging capabilities.”
“Real estate, especially quality properties in first-tier cities, can still secure low-interest loans from banks even during systemic financial crises. This is like having a ‘double-edged sword’ that can be used for offense or defense. This is because the financial system in China and many regions has a much higher credit preference for real estate than for other assets. This is not a market efficiency issue, but a systemic dividend.”
“The ‘temporary feeling’ of long-term renting can subconsciously lead to a rejection of investment. This ‘unstable atmosphere’ gradually affects your sense of control over life. A stable life rhythm = stronger psychological resilience + better asset holding capacity. It’s not about ‘buying for the sake of buying,’ but understanding how to use the act of ‘buying a house’ to achieve a complete asset management system; it’s anti-consumption, leverage optimization, counter-cyclical, and part of an emotional immune system.”
upzhu.eth（@bubblegold2）：From the perspective of asset preservation, real estate has advantages
“From the perspective of rental yield, renting is certainly more cost-effective, and the higher the luxury property, the lower the rental yield, making renting even more advantageous.
However, from the perspective of asset preservation, owning real estate has inherent advantages, especially good properties in first-tier cities. Compared to the intangible assets in the crypto space, good properties are not so easy to lose and can still generate cash flow from banks.
So if you make money in the crypto space, you still need to buy a good property; at least if one day you lose everything in crypto, you still have a house as a safety net, preventing you from falling into poverty.”
3. Mixed Views: Whether to buy or not depends on the individual; focusing solely on returns may not be wise
SweetY（@shirleyusy）：Buying a house can result in less loss than buying NFTs
“From another perspective, if you lose 99% on a monkey land investment, using the money from that to buy a luxury home in a first-tier city would at most result in a 20% loss. When investment becomes forced consumption, it’s better to just consume.”
cryptoolddog（@CryptoOlddog）：From a purely financial perspective, don’t buy, but having a house brings peace of mind
“1. From a purely financial perspective, a house is a relatively poor financial product; if funds are tight, don’t buy a house.
- 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, like a 30,000 yuan mattress, without worrying about being kicked out.
Emotion 2:
The sense of security from living in a house; in the worst-case scenario, you still have a place to stay.
Emotion 3:
A defensive asset; in the high-risk cryptocurrency industry, if something goes wrong, you still have a tangible asset.
Emotion 4:
Marriage, dating, interactions with people around you; no matter how much you say, that red book can lower communication costs, just like driving a Maybach out; often, material possessions can speak for you.”
BY（@By_Web3）：The demand for housing is also intertwined with human nature
For ordinary people, buying a house is not just an economic issue; it also includes life needs like marriage.
TingHu（@TingHu888）：Investing also needs to consider human nature; owning property is more stable than high-risk investments
“It’s actually quite simple; when the proportion of a house in total assets is not significant, you won’t consider this cost-performance ratio.
Many people sell their houses or mortgage them to invest, and 99.9% of the outcomes are disastrous. On the other hand, those who cash out to buy houses may face pullbacks, but at least they preserve most of their profits.
Investment often requires considering not only the profit-loss cost-performance ratio but also the negative effects of human nature; it’s safer to avoid the uncontrollable greed of human nature.”
Whether to buy a house or not is actually a very personal matter.
From the discussion, it’s clear that everyone is using facts to illustrate the correctness of their viewpoints. Looking from a broader perspective, the ideas of ⌈low returns on real estate⌋ and ⌈happiness in homeownership⌋ are not mutually exclusive. Many people may not have thoughts about buying a house not simply because real estate as an asset is “not good enough,” but rather due to the high housing prices and poor economic outlook being the more significant factors.
As a necessity of life, whether to buy or rent depends on personal circumstances or beliefs. If financial strength is sufficient, purchasing property as a consumer good without considering returns is understandable; if financial strength is lacking, opting to rent instead of buy to alleviate life pressure is the right thing to do in the correct environment.
However, being ⌈adamant about buying a house⌋ or ⌈adamant about not buying a house⌋ should not become a form of political correctness.
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