Clarification on buying vs renting

Sorry to necrobump, but when modelling this, you need to account for interest on a year by year basis instead of assuming a single interest over time.

One of the big factors for house price boom was low interest rates. The model should have been able to include a fix at the (then) low rates of <=1% for 10/15 years followed by a reset to higher rates.

Not a criticism of your work, just a note for anyone trying to model this out to make real decisions.

For me the biggest factor in buying is:

  • for consumption reason (getting the right house in right location)
  • larger single family homes tend to be expensive to rent so the buy/rent decision is tilted
  • I want to hedge a large known expense

There are also some incidental benefits such as wealth tax savings.

But I agree that for quite many years, it has been difficult to find property that makes sense on a purely standalone financial basis (adding in other parameters such as asset class diversification etc. might help tip the decision).