Trust me, home ownership isn't much better than throwing money at rent (depending on the market of course). Property taxes, insurance, maintenance, plus intere

Trust me, home ownership isn't much better than throwing money at rent (depending on the market of course). Property taxes, insurance, maintenance, plus interest and PMI all dominate your monthly housing expenses -- the few drops that go into principle don't amount to hardly anything for the first 10 years or so. In my case, the numbers looked good in the beginning. But then insurance went up 5x, property tax more than doubled, and the market tanked. Took a long time to get out of that situation.