Originally Posted by
bitingmidge
I've seen all the sums, and the only people who actually believe that they are better off renting, have convinced themselves that buying houses is only for intellectual inferiors, or they have a vested interest in flogging investment products.
Let's just for a minute pretend that over 25 years, houses increase in value at the same rate of inflation. Let's also pretend, to be fair, that rent does so as well.
Interest rates on the other hand fluctuate, but let's just say they average twice the inflation rate. In very crude terms given the above set of numbers, one could work out a discounted comparison between renting and buying. Without doing the sums, I'm willing to bet that at about the ten year mark, repayments and rent will be the same, and for the last fifteen years, repayments will be less, and after 25, well you guessed it, Mr Renter is still there, while Mr Home Owner is in the south of France having a holiday, or driving round Australia for a year or two, with tenants in his house paying for it all.
...
Or am I wrong?