An additional point to remember is that many, perhaps most, landlords will put as little money into their property as possible. After all, it's an investment,

An additional point to remember is that many, perhaps most, landlords will put as little money into their property as possible. After all, it's an investment, not a living space. As a renter, I had problem such as: * The roof was leaking, and the landlord patched it ... poorly. * The heat exchanger in the furnace was cracked and letting CO into the living space. He refused to fix it for over two weeks as I fought him. At the time I was young and did not know better, but this literally could have killed us. * Our microwave broke, and the landlord refused to repair it. I was not allowed to replace it. * Our water heater failed. It took our landlord over 3 weeks to replace it. We finally decided to move and were able to purchase a house for $235k that was literally twice the size for $200/mo less than we were paying in rent. We lived there for 7 years and sold it for $417k. I am pretty sure we could not have invested the $200/mo savings (about $17k) for 7 years and made close to $170k in profits.