I’ve heard, way too many times, that one should buy a house or condo as soon as possible to stop throwing away money in rent. The Torontoist blog has a nice post debunking this myth, with numbers for the Toronto market. Interesting read.
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Have you seen the NY Times calculator?
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/10/business/2007_BUYRENT_GRAPHIC.html
It’s a great way to do these comparisons. My conclusion is for less than 3 year stays, renting is the way to go — if you have the discipline to save. Of course, if you spend the difference on board games, then you might be in trouble … 🙂
You know me too well.
Thanks for the link to the calculator, I hadn’t seen it.
thanks for the article. It was really interesting. Housing, like stocks, is not always a good investment, and I think housing in Toronto is overvalued right now. On the other hand, buying property in any great city is a stable investment, though there are good and bad ways to do it. Obviously, buying anything outright is better than borrowing to buy. However, if you bought property in London, Paris, or New York at any point in history, you did well. I just think we need to realize that one should SAVE for what they want, then buy, rather than borrow for what they want, then live in debt.