Renting vs Buying a Home

Fact or Fiction:  It costs more to buy than to rent your home. Well that may very well depend on where you live more then anything else.

Just today, Trulia released its latest Rent vs. Buy study, showing that in 98 percent of American cities, it's actually less expensive to buy a home than it is to rent!  Of course, the type of home you might want to buy could be more pricy than what you’d be satisfied living in as a rental, and buying a home requires an upfront chunk of dough (i.e., down payment and closing costs) that renters don’t have to come up with. 

 But the age-old would-be buyer objection that “I can’t afford to buy a home” is now frequently shattered by the reality that when you take all things into account, buying a home at today’s prices and interest rates can actually cost the same or less than renting at today’s relatively high rental costs in many areas. 

That said, if you live in San Francisco or New York City, chances are good that it does actually cost more to buy than to rent. But if you live elsewhere, it behooves you to actually do the math, factor in the massive tax advantages of homeownership and see which is truly more expensive for you.  And make sure your decision accounts for the massive opportunity costs you might incur if you don’t take advantage of today’s prices and rates to buy a home of your own and start building equity - something you can simply never do as a tenant.  

 Jim Mazzerina