I feel like all of your statements contain errors and all these errors happen to benefit the pro-owning view. So I primarily spent my time addressing the errors

I feel like all of your statements contain errors and all these errors happen to benefit the pro-owning view. So I primarily spent my time addressing the errors. I think you kept waiting for me to explain why housing is a bad investment but that was never my point of view. I think people are way too confident on their housing investment. Some FUD is good. > If you have one and feel like it, I'd still love to see a detailed scenario that is easy for a normal person to achieve where renting exceeds buying over a 10 or 20 year term. I recommend that you understand what that NYT calculator does exactly then punch in the numbers for your area and see if you can find rent for the given amount. It really seems to come down to how bullish you are on your local housing market vs your stock portfolio. Plus the premium you are willing to pay for mobility vs the premium for extra space and a yard. As a side not, according to [1] only 37% of Americans live in their house for more than 10 years. The median is 8.7 years. >> It makes no sense to compare renting + no investments to owning with lots of money in equity. > So, just curious, why did you share and defend the calculator that does exactly this? I think you are mistaken about the NYT calculator, it does exactly (1). >> economies of scale keep rental unit maintenance fees lower. > FWIW, that's not what the calculator claims - it states explicitly calculating house rentals comparable to purchases, where there is no economy of scale. I guess the whole point is to make the comparison as fair as possible by keeping everything equal except the method of payment. The NYT calculator sets up a hypothetical situation where you are buying a property. Then as an alternative, it takes the down-payment money and invests it and calculates a monthly sunk-cost such that you still break-even during the given time period. As far as I know it makes no distinction as to how you spend that monthly budget. The question it poses is whether you can locally find rental units within that budget that are 'good enough' for you to live in. The extent to which you can come under-budget is the extent by which you are better off renting vs owning. [1] https://www.financialsamurai.com/the-median-homeownership-duration-is-too-short-to-build-real-wealth/ https://www.financialsamurai.com/the-median-homeownership-du...