> To put it another way, renting gives you an option to buy a house at any point in the future from a strictly better financial position than you'd be in than i

> To put it another way, renting gives you an option to buy a house at any point in the future from a strictly better financial position than you'd be in than if you bought a house now. This is nearly never true. Tell that to all the people who say if they'd only bought a house X years ago but now they are priced out of the market. The only scenario where what you say is true is if you bought at the peak of a decaying city, which can happen but isn't the normal scenario. > Yet I could rent it out at a profit. You seem to be assuming that you can find a place to rent for a price that is substantially under market rent, just because the landlord has a low cost basis on it and can make a profit even at such low rent. Which is totally not how landlords price their rent. They'll charge what the market can bear even if their effective cost basis is zero (say, they inherited the property).