Renting VS Owning

[cubssoxfan]

Very good points everyone.
I believe it's a lifestyle choice although financials are and should be analyzed. I cannot imagine a townhouse/apartment/condo being sound-proofed enough to let my kids yell, scream, dance and occasionally do the sibling quarrelling. They need to be able to let loose and be kids at home occasionally. Otherwise, with my kids personality types, I cannot expect them to be well behaved in school and out in public if they do not have a place to "get the ants out of their pants"?. The backyard trampoline and space for yard-ball (Calvin & Hobes-calvin ball type of game) are also important for those times Dad & Mom don't have energy to take them to the park.
Please don't get me wrong; my nephews live in a townhouse and it works out well for them. There are plenty of city dwellers who do fine raising really good, bright kids in condos and apartments. It's the beautiful choice we Americans are lucky to have.
I have to second the opinion that homes can be a rather mediocre investment. The point earlier about "forced savings" is still valid, however.
If you are paying $1,000 in mortgage&escrow or $1,000 in rent and do not have anything left over for savings, the home might net you a small profit(after expenses for upkeep) when you sell. I do not know any landlord who will give back a rebate on your rent. BUT, if you can rent for less than buying a house and invest the difference for 7+% a year, than renting will most likely be the better investment.

[futexan]

To paraphrase Kissinger... : The feeling of home ownership is the best aphrodisiac : ...

[Beto]

Everyone has some very interesting points.

[MissDaisy]

Originally Posted by tstone

After dealing with a landlord and property manager that decided to keep our fairly large deposit, make up fake & inflated damage charges upon moveout, breach clauses in the rental contract, violate their own privacy policies, trash our credit w/ fake mortgage accounts w/ fake acct numbers, and dodge the mailmen & cops, I can easily say that I'll never rent again. "In the end, the universe tends to unfold as it should," and it did -- one year / one lawsuit later, but I have no intention of playing lawyer and dealing with all of that red tape again.

Bank's slave >> Landlord's slave

How did they get access to your credit with fake mortgage accts? You have to be a subscriber to the individual credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, TransUnion) but in this age of identity theft, I guess every new technology and safeguard creates a new type of criminal...
...used to be bad when someone stole your milk money...those were the days, huh?

[txtraveler]

Buying your own home is better than paying for someone else's, but having only been in Houston a few months I'm glad I rent because now I know places where I would buy and places I will stay away from.

[Topaz]

Originally Posted by SkyeAnjel

I feel leasing is just throwing your money away and should only be done if necessary or you are new to an area and want to learn the area. I am always suprised when owners who lease want tenants with good credit and my answer is always, if they had good credit, they would just buy...

I think you can find people with excellent credit who want to lease for a year, but it is probably hard to find renters with excellent credit who want to lease for a long time. So the owner who wants tenants with good credit will probably have to settle for a series of short-term tenants.

[tstone]

Originally Posted by MissDaisy

How did they get access to your credit with fake mortgage accts? You have to be a subscriber to the individual credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, TransUnion) but in this age of identity theft, I guess every new technology and safeguard creates a new type of criminal...
...used to be bad when someone stole your milk money...those were the days, huh?

They ran a credit check on application. They dug into the file once we started initiating deposit disputes and proceeded to paint their work of art. Only on Equifax though, and we had already bought our house and got everything situated like insurance, emergency credit, etc. Then we paid off all non-mortgage debt and vowed to never use credit again. Furthermore, the lawsuit taught us the credit system is essentially an oppressive, unregulated, borderline-criminal free-for-all. There's almost zero protection for the consumer, and even with 7-year fraud alerts, freezes, etc because accounts can still be opened. We disputed the records for a year. One month they were removed by the bureau as we disputed because they were illogical; the next month they were opened back up with different account numbers, different "days late" that didn't make chronological sense, and for different amounts past due on mine and my wife's. As this was happening, we simply collected & summarized the details for the lawsuit they were dodging.

Well we got our money and then some, and everything got cleaned up. It was a hobby of sorts for about a year and I could do it again much easier but I will never put myself in a situation like that again. Renters in debt have almost zero rights, and are less than an inch away from getting their balls busted for the next 7-10 years by a phone jockey on a $9 an hr power trip.