Should You Rent Or Own Your Home?

April 17, 2012

Interview with Jane Hodges, author of the book Rent vs Own

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Mike Carruthers:
Conventional wisdom has always been that owning a home is better than renting but that’s not necessarily true anymore because home buyer behavior has changed.

Jane Hodges:
In the past people used to put really large down payments down on their home and pay them off quickly but as time has moved on people tend to put less down and they stay for a shorter amount of time.
 

Jane Hodges, author of the book Rent vs Own...

Something like 4 out of 5 first time buyers put less than 20% down payment on a home - yet also a really high proportion of them leave within 4 or 5 years. So what that means is that they have paid fees to get into their home and they’ve paid fees to sell the home.

And when you add those fees to the fact that they didn’t have a lot of equity they lost money on the deal. In other words renting would have been cheaper.

The first several years the bulk of your payment is going to interest not your equity and while you do get  a tax offset for that which may or may not remain with us in the future – if you don’t stay very long you have to ask was this a better  deal than renting?

As a general rule, Jane says, you should only buy a house if you’re pretty sure you’re going to live there at least 5 years, of course home ownership is part of the American dream and it does have benefits.

It’s just that what that does for you personally and financially may not be as appealing as it used to be.

To hear the complete unedited interview, click here.