Like you point out, how long you intend to live at a particular place has a huge impact on whether you should buy or rent. Along with that SPECIFIC [local] mark

Like you point out, how long you intend to live at a particular place has a huge impact on whether you should buy or rent. Along with that SPECIFIC [local] market conditions will also dictate whether holding short, long, or in between makes sense. You CAN make large amounts of money flipping houses (in certain markets), you CAN come out ahead in the long term, but you CAN also come out "worse" depending on how you go about things.