[Christien]

Ok, what about this. (ftr this is all hypothetical for me - we're in a traditional mortgage) Rent is $1000/month, mortgage is $1500/month, roughly 2:1 I to P ratio (assume early stages of mortgage). Let's say you can invest $500/month at 10%. After the first year, you'd have $5K of the mortgage P paid off , with $13K put to I, whereas with renting you'd be out $12K in rent, no equity. But if you were adding $500/month to an investment account you'd be left with $6K P in the investment at the end of the year, plus whatever I that generated throughout the year (not sure how to calculate that quickly).

So after this first year, you'd have $5K equity in the home, earning 0%, or $6K equity in an investment account, earning 10%. Plus you'd have the added benefit of no costs of home repairs, liquidity, etc.

I agree that in some markets buying definitely gets you more than renting, but not in all. When we were living in central Toronto, we looked at buying, but everything that was in our price range (up to $350K) was a *****hole - far worse than anything we could've rented for up to $1500/month, and far worse than our apt. at $900/month. If we wanted to stay in the city, renting would've made WAY more sense.