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Jenny says I'm a single woman and I rent an apartment in a great city. I'm very happy here as it is

close to my work, my church and most of my social activities. I have no desire to own my own home because

I'm afraid I have to have maintenance and long care people on speed dial and to

buy something even remotely affordable it I would have to move way outside of town. Is it okay to

rent forever? I hear you talk about a paid off home being a large piece of people's net worth,

but is it still possible to build wealth if you don't own a home?

So, yeah, I mean, I think the biggest piece in this Jenny is looking far in the future,

and I always look to when it comes to retirement time, the singular expense that continues to go up that you will not have control over is your house, is your housing.

So rent will continue to rise. And if you own your home and you pay it off, then that's an

expense that you don't have and it's continuing to work for you building equity. So it is

a part of your financial picture that I would want you to have a part of it. It doesn't have to be

today. It doesn't have to be in the next five years. But eventually, I would have home ownership

in your financial picture for many reasons. But I think mostly when you look towards times like

retirement, you won't have to have that expense that continues to rise and you actually have an asset

for you.

I can completely endorse that where you are today in your life, Jenny, that this particular

situation makes sense. It sounds like you got it made right now. There's nothing wrong with that

at all. It just doesn't scale long term.

So here's the problem.

You know, she doesn't say how old she is.

Let's just say she's 30.

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