My counter to this article is that you have to live somewhere. So you either rent a big chunk of money that you can use to buy a house, or you rent housing dir

My counter to this article is that you have to live somewhere. So you either rent a big chunk of money that you can use to buy a house, or you rent housing directly. If the principle, interest, taxes, insurance and maintenance is about the same as renting over the course of a number of years then you are better off buying. The risk is that you may need to move before you are at the break-even point. And risk is sometimes location dependant (how varied are the industries that provide good employment in your area, etc). And you risk rising costs (I wasn't prepared for property taxes and insurance to outpace inflation 4 to 1, for example). But the biggest mistake that I feel people make (at least in my case) is getting more house than I needed. I would have been better off getting a much smaller / less desirable property that I could have paid off in 7 years, instead of the 30 year mortgage. Because then after 7 years, if property rates rise, well I can sell and have more money for a down payment on a better house. And if the fall, I can still sell and put the money down on the same better house, which is also much cheaper (assuming similar area / cost of living).