Traciatim,
Re: Comment #1
Thanks for your comment.
While I might not be able to convince you, each item I listed is 100% true based on my experience. If, however, your experience is different that is fine. I wish you all the best with homeownership. By the way, I am a homeowner. I have been a long time renter. Both are awesome options – depending on your situaiton in life. See Wojciech above. He is a genious because he knows what is best for him now. He does not listen to talking heads but judges and evaluates the situaiton based on his own finances, goals, and preferences.
Re: Comment #2
In your example of the pump, you had to take money out of your emergency fund. If someone does not have an emergency fund they might not be ready to buy. They might need to rent – predictability.
I’m not anti-homeownership. I’m simply informing renters that they are not financial morons for renting (as some people insinuate). There is a time and a place for everything. If I rushed the timing when I bought my first home I KNOW I would regret it today. But, now I have absolutely no regrets (See Mrs. Money below).
This post simply claims that homeownership is not for everyone and that, in fact, there are advantages of renting – at least six.

@fredct
Awesome. I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Actually, I’m on vacation and it is driving my wife CRAZY that I’m on the computer right now so I’m glad you properly defended each point because it means I can get back to my vacation sooner.
Clap, clap, clap. I applaud you.

@MBAbriefs
Excatly, “depends on your personal situation”. I completely agree.

There is something else here that he didn’t mention, which is your time. If a water heater or whatever breaks, your time commitment when renting is the time to make a phone call and tell the landlord. Not the time to research repairmen, get a quote, and miss work to be home while the work is done. Unless you work at home of course, but still you must take time away from work to deal with it all as a homeowner.

#2 you appear to have misread or misunderstood as well. He’s not saying here that renting is cheaper (it may or may not be, but I’ll get to that in a second), he’s saying that it’s good if you need time to build up a downpayment for a house.

Even if the monthly cost of the house and renting were the same, you can’t buy the house until you’ve built up the downpayment. Or, even if you can, your marginal cost to do so is typically through the roof.

Back to the question of cost you brought up, you say “not in areas where price/rent ratios go skewed”. Well, really that’s still the majority of the country right now, except for markets where housing prices have totally crashed (Vegas, Detroit, etc), houses are still relatively expensive compared to historical means. According to data from Robert Shiller of the Case-Shiller Housing Index, housing prices as an nationwide average are still around 35% above the real (inflation adjusted) historical average. They’re still higher on an inflation-adjusted basis than even the highest of all high bubbles prior to this one (late 70s, late 80s, etc).

#3 and #4 we agree, except again you’re missing the effort/time aspect with dealing with finding someone to watch in #4, just as it was left out of #1

#5 is one where you simple changed topic. You basically said ‘okay but what about…’, so I guess you acknowledge #5 may be valid for some people? Craig never said there were no advantages to owning, just that is one for renting. Seems you agreement. Meanwile, I’d never sign a lease that allows me to be kicked out for renovations.

Again you’re missing the point with #6. Buying a house is a long term commitment with significant consequences. If you sign a bad deal it can effect you for decades. Renting is much less of a commitment so have more flexibility. It’s really similar to #3… flexibility in housing and also flexibility in financial terms, so it’s easier to correct if you realize you made a mistake.

Me? Yes, I’m a renter. Although I’d been looking into owning, but the prices are still pretty off the wall. The 30% needed decrease to return to historical norms would mean a $1500 mortgage would drop to $1050, and a $2000 mortgage would drop to $1400. Then we’d be talking.

For smaller things, like my pump that died on my heating system (electric hot water baseboard) needed to be replaced costing my a few hundred bucks. I had to take that out of an emergency fund to pay for it since it wasn’t a planned expense. Which brings me to a great point going for renters. You don’t have to be responsible with your finances. This explains a great deal why the net worth of individuals who rent is far lower than individuals who buy.

1) Renters are paying others for services that they could take care of for themselves
and
2) Renters don’t save the difference, as shown by the net worth stats. If they were being responsible the net worth stats would be equal or skewed toward renters because they would be more exposed to stocks/bonds which generally do better than leveraged real estate (because of the interest drag).

The major point that buying has going for it for the average person (IE, not the person that invests the difference by buying less housing . . . but ‘normal folk’) is that buying a place your payments end eventually and are inflation protected.

If you buy a place today and your payment is 1000 bucks a month, and rent a place for 1000 bucks a month, in 25 years at a 2% inflation rate your rent will be about 1650, vs still 1000 bucks for your house (I know, property tax and maintenance and stuff goes up . . . but your mortgage ends). If you took a 25 year mortgage, the next year your rent will still go up, but the purchaser has their home and no one can take it away. Assuming they do no other savings and rely on CPP/OAS, it’s far easier to live without a huge monthly payment when your just trying to relax. This is why the general rule should be for people to own the home they live in, because eventually it’s going to make your cash flow far easier to manage. Very few people are disciplined enough to plan fully for their retirement, as shown by stats on retirement accounts and retired people stats.