> Not to mention the fact that, if you're paying $1,000/mo for rent, at the end of the year, you have almost nothing to show for your $12,000. In a house/home,

> Not to mention the fact that, if you're paying $1,000/mo for rent, at the end of the year, you have almost nothing to show for your $12,000. In a house/home, you have equity in said house. Suppose you buy a $300k house with a 15% downpayment. That means you spent $45k to GET the house. Now if the rent payments and the mortgage payment are both about the same, both spend $12k/year to keep their house, but the homeowner gains a very small amount of equity (most of the payment in the early years goes to interest on the mortgage) but the renter has an extra $45k of liquid net worth! If the renter invests in the stock market or a money market fund he gets some ROI from that - income the homeowner can't get. Plus being more solvent is valuable in itself in these hard times.