Neeta, the part you are overlooking is the income tax benefit. All our tax situations are different so I’ll use a generic one. Lets say you earn more than 80k a year, that 1000 a month in interest you are earning lands in top of your bracket so lets average it at about 30%, so you are left with 700 actual income. Then the property taxes you would pay would knock off income at the top of your bracket so a third of it would come back to you, lets say another 80 a month. Since the difference was 370 and tax wise you benefit 380, you are $10 to the good and you wont have any rent increases and can benefit from appreciation. So the real bet is on the appreciation, don’t feel bad either way, all investing is like a casino, where do want to place your bet. Right now the odds are against apreciation and in favor of depreciation so you are now in the same boat as the rest of us reverse flippers, timing your exit from the rental world and trying to predict the future. The disparity doesn’t get that much bigger with a mortgage because of the tax offset however 1200 rent for a 300k property is fundamentally still in favor of renting. 2000 rent on a 300k buy is the break even point in my book, so be thankful you are you and not me because my 2k rental can be had for 280k and I’m still not jumping.

P.S. you were very conservative with your interest estimates so I was equally as conservative with my tax estimates, both are likely to be higher and the only way to truly know is to run scenarios with your money on some tax software.