A Home Is a Lousy Investment

Interesting observation by my co-worker:
there's a securitized form of almost all investments.


If you're staying at a place medium term or longer, renting can be compared apples to apples with buying.
The amount of rent is equivalent to a mortgage (plus taxes, association fees, maint., etc) on a depreciating property. The portion of your payment that would have counted toward equity is paid to the landlord instead. (Same point Hammbo made.) This comparison assumes a low down payment but with FHA and even conventional mortgages today, down payments can be very low (<5%).

I've seen some sites index the cost of buying vs cost of renting by city/region. The devil is probably in this detail.