Good point. One of my assumptions is that the rent would not be much cheaper than the mortgage payments (plus maintenance). Of course that might not be true, an

Good point. One of my assumptions is that the rent would not be much cheaper than the mortgage payments (plus maintenance). Of course that might not be true, and in that case you'd indeed end up paying much more than you pay when renting. However, when renting, you have to cover the same maintenance cost + interest that the actual owner is paying - why else would they rent the place out? (Ok, maybe you can time the market or have another kind of fluke, but can you really count on that?) Thanks for the link! I need to give this a deeper look, as I'm currently considering my options.