I have to agree, in general, with CAR and livingincali. There are exceptions to your generalization that renting is worse than owning.
If your time horizon is less than 5 years- then you REALLY need to do the math – look at risk of falling values, look at transaction costs, look at the whole rent vs buy for the same property, look at lost opportunity of your down payment money. I say 5 years because markets don’t always rise, financing frontloads the interest so you don’t make much of a dent in the debt the first several years, and transaction costs can be hard to recoup if the market is flat or rising slowly. Folks forget about this stuff.
But – if you’re looking at a home long term, it totally makes sense to purchase. I’m within grasp of paying off my mortgage so the only bills I’ll have with housing will be taxes, insurance, and maintenance… That’s HUGE and is part of my early retirement budget. You can’t pay off a rented situation.
