I think you need to look at the WHOLE picture. In order to deduct your mortgage interest, and receive a percentage of it back in return, you have to PAY it first. AFAIK, you don’t get it all back. It may seem like a benefit at tax time, but over the course of the year, you lost money on that deal.

If you add up the full mortgage P&I, plus all of the maintenance and upkeep costs associated with being a home owner, and compare it to leasing a similar house, in most cases I think that the math will work out in favor of leasing- even after calculating the loss of the mortgage interest deduction.

That doesn’t even account for the headache of trying to prepare a house to sell, listing it, showing it, closing costs, losing money on the house when you sell it, being stuck and unable to move until / unless you sell it, etc., etc.

For me, Buying = indentured servitude to mortgage lender and being chained to one location indefinitely. Leasing = freedom

but in a lot cases, it may be better to rent. my husband’s family never had money to buy, but they rented in a great area by the beach, and all their kids got to go to great schools & surf everyday, even though they lived in an apartment for 30yrs!!

Most people I know who are homeowners have little equity in their homes at all and those who do are in such depressed areas of the country that it doesnt matter. My last house was on the market for 6 months and had less viewings than months it was listed and one offer for $100,000 less than the asking price. I am not even exaggerating.

I hate how hard it is to convey messages through text…

I agree that homeownership SUCKS sometimes. I hate being responsible for everything. It’s scary and it can be down right expensive. And I also agree that buying a home is not necessarily economically better than leasing. Especially considering things like 100% financing, interest-only mortgages and the fact that people don’t seem to stay in their houses very long these days. (whatever happened to 20% down and living in a house forever? ) It’s a big risk when people don’t put anything down, pay interest only and just assume they’ll quickly acquire a good chunk of equity by appreciation alone. I won’t even get into closing costs and realtor fees to sell a house. We’ve sold 2 homes before…one we came out OK on, the other, not so much (and yes, we had put money down, paid more than interest and had a low rate…yet we still had to pay out of pocket to sell it).

We have been in our current house for 3 years and thanks to some fairly inexpensive cosmetic updates we have been able to up the value in a short amount of time. I don’t know how long we’ll live here, but I refuse to buy a new house unless I can put a sizeable chunk of money down on it. I don’t like the idea of homeownership if I literally don’t OWN any of it.

Wow, this sort of got long. But my analytical hubby with an economics degree has spent the last 11 years “schooling” me on how to be a tightwad. ha ha