It is a tough dilema, believe me I understand and quite frankly am in the same boat. I don’t like renting at all.
Conversely the rent verses own calculations may or may not be able to prove one way is fiscally better then the other. I understand that as well. You bring up other points that while a bit more subtle may indeed help bolster an argument about buying. That is, the interest rate climate, the strength of the dollar, inflation, etc… The million dollar question is, will the overall depreciation of the housing market be enough to compensate for all of these likely events. Unfortunately, not only do I not know the answer, but the answer will vary for each individual. I think it is very safe to say that sometime in the future, those who have saved up alot of money may have the ability to do very well. Of course the other question is, if after you run numbers of various scenarios of depreciation and interest rate hikes, and the savings are somewhat nominal, is that time renting verses not living in your own home worth the wait?
I believe it is hard to add a valuation to the lifestyle variable. Others do not.
I think you need to sit down with your Realtor, develop a spreadsheet, look at depreciation scenarios, look at interest rate hikes, look at how this will affect your taxes, and you can at least get some sort of guesstimates of how things “may” turn out a few years down the line.
As a side note I always hear people really stress about the write off… but then I never see them actually run a tax calculation to get a very exact amount of how much they do lose in tax money. Nor do I see how much they save by not paying other costs associated with owning a home. I am not saying one outweighs the other, I am saying it is alot of work to actually find the REAL EXACT numbers.
My earlier post about depreciation is not aimed to hammer on San Marcos. San Marcos is a nice place. However, IMO it fits the profile of a community that has had ALOT of development in the past 10 years, and is a fair commute to places like Sorrento Valley and other areas of high salaried jobs. Now, I am NOT saying San Marcos is like another Eastlake waiting to happen… I am saying that I think it and communities like it are kind of the next domino to fall hard as we move up the food chain in the depreciation cycle.
Now if you are buying for the long run… not a year or 5 years, but for the long run… AND you can be content and not stress out while the market does its thing… then you should follow your instincts… lifestyle? or dollars and cents?
