If you play around with the rent vs. buy calculator at the NY Times for a while, you will come to two conclusions: 1) The rent vs. buy decision is almost entir

If you play around with the rent vs. buy calculator at the NY Times for a while, you will come to two conclusions: 1) The rent vs. buy decision is almost entirely based on your expectation of future house price changes versus rental prices changes. Everything else is around the edges. 2) Regardless of your opinion on the first question, you should never buy a house when you think there is a significant chance you will leave in less than five years. I think housing will go down another 20-40% from here (causing widespread bank failures and eventually the dissolution of the Federal Reserve) and rents will be stable to down due to the deflationary pressures we are facing. Therefore, I will not buy a house. YMMV.