Rent or Buy

[omni550]

At the risk of , the NYT today has an article on "Rent vs Buy" . It is accompanied by an interactive calculator which looks better than many I've seen in the past.

"Methodology
The calculator keeps a running tally of the most common expenses of owning and renting. It also takes into account something known as opportunity cost — for example, the return you could have earned by investing your money instead of spending it on a down payment. The calculator assumes that the profit you would have made in your investments would be taxed as long-term capital gains and adjusts the bottom line accordingly. The calculator tabulates opportunity costs for all parts of the buying and renting situations. All figures are in current dollars."

Link to calculator

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...alculator.html

omni

[gauss]

I will have to read the article. Having inherited Dad's condo, I am currently trying to answer the question from the other end of the transaction (ie "Rent or Sell").

-gauss

[Birdie Num Nums]

While all components of the calculator have some effect, utilities played a good part of what I was considering. Some nice apartments I'm looking at cover all utilities except electricity. Some even offer 'free' (included in rent) hi-speed internet. When I plug in the numbers of what I'm considering it's about dead even, excluding free internet. That doesn't even take into the calculation places that offer amenities such as a nice fitness gym and business center, and places to hang out to meet other residents. Plus how do I figure in the 'cost' of the headache of having to do repairs and maintenance myself or arrange for experts to do it, if I owned the home/condo? All that makes renting much more favorable, for me. As they say, YMMV.

[pb4uski]

Looks pretty comprehensive.

[panacea]

Thanks for the link- I can't remember seeing a better calculator for this purpose.

[FANOFJESUS]

That is a neat calculator.