Benquo comments on Review: Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids - Less Wrong

17 Post author: jsalvatier 29 May 2012 06:00PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (257)

Sort By: Leading

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Benquo 29 May 2012 09:28:09PM 0 points [-]

I'm not sure I understand what "conversion" you're talking about, but it sounds like you might be saying that the landlord has no mortgage interest deduction, so they need to receive a larger rent payment to break even, than it would cost the renter to own the same property. If that's not your point, then disregard the rest of this comment.

To the landlord the mortgage interest is a business expense and can typically be deducted. So there's (ceteris paribus) no difference between the net cost of the mortgage to the landlord, and to a homeowner.

Comment author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 29 May 2012 10:28:07PM 6 points [-]

What I'm saying is that you can either pay $2000 of rent using post-tax income or $2000 of mortgage using pretax income. This might work out to the difference between a $3300 mortgage payment (pretax income) or a $2000 rent payment (after the $3300 has been taxed at an e.g. 39% marginal rate by state and feds).

Comment author: Benquo 29 May 2012 10:50:54PM 0 points [-]

OK, that's what I thought you meant, thanks for clarifying.