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Whether buying is better than renting depends entirely on your locality. Price/rent ratios aren't the same in SF, New York, and Baltimore.

Baltimore has high rents (relative to prices) because of Hopkins, for example. There are many wealthy people from the Middle East who come here for treatment. Many places, price/rent ratios are under 10 years. If you can buy and will be in the area for a while, you should.

In NYC and San Francisco, price/rent ratios can reach absurd numbers: 40 to 50 years. Why? Emotional bullshit, a sense of prestige, et cetera. Buying only makes sense if you expect apocalyptic increases of housing prices (see: Tokyo, especially in the late '80s).

Some of the hardest-to-predict relevant variables are (1) what you expect housing to do, and (2) whether you think your career needs will favor (or disfavor) a move. There are a lot of sociological factors that no one can predict. But most people, when they buy, are betting money they can't really afford to lose.




> In NYC and San Francisco, price/rent ratios can reach absurd numbers: 40 to 50 years. Why? Emotional bullshit, a sense of prestige, et cetera. Buying only makes sense if you expect apocalyptic increases of housing prices (see: Tokyo, especially in the late '80s).

Yeah, that's certainly true. I'd call those outliers in the same way that I'd call places going through huge economic crashes where you can pick up a house for pennies outliers.

In typical markets, and even ones close to those outliers, over the long run (30 years), buying an equivalent property nearly always makes more sense.




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