I rent an awesome 1.5M condo for $3,500 a month. No hassles, no prop tax, no condo fee. I am not concerned about purchasing before my lease ends. If I have to eat a few months, I am still several hundreds of thousands of dollars ahead. I will buy most likely sometime between tomorrow and 2011. I want a deal, or I will happily keep renting for pennies on the dollar.
My rental is new so I don’t have to put too much maintenance into it, but I have rented a few shit holes in my day. I have learned, that it’s is ok to do a few handyman projects on a rental.