As soon as you release yourself from the mindset that your house is an investment you are free to find financial nirvana. Is renting “throwing money away?” No, but neither is buying. Both are your “housing cost.” When your housing cost is the same to buy or rent, you should buy and lock in a fixed housing cost to hedge inflation. Maybe not this year but over time, inflation has it’s way. If your rent is 2k and you can buy it for under 300k, then do it, in ten years the rent will have risen but the mortgage wont. If your 2k rental costs 400k or 500k, you are throwing money away, not because renting or buying is bad, but because you increased your housing cost too much. Eliminate the potential for appreciation from the equation and you will find clarity.

Case and point: My last rental was $1500, I could have bought it in 2006 when I was first looking to rent for about 375k. Ignoring the fact that it might double in price (which it didn’t) the correct answer is to rent, choosing to rent for half the monthly outlay was the right call. When I moved two months ago I could have bought it for under 175k, if I had wanted that size/style of housing the correct answer would have been to buy at that price because it would have been cheaper or the same price. Up or down in value, my housing cost would go down or stay the same and be locked in.