A little something from The Gothamist in NYC to make all of us renters feel better about ourselves... The assumption that buying is preferable to renting is so ingrained in our national real estate psyche, that to suggest otherwise could result in someone questioning your financial, if not actual, sanity. The New York Times did some serious nationwide number crunching, however, and is concluding that renters fared better than buyers over the last two years. The turnabout is the result of buyers facing higher monthly costs than renters, while losing money on their investments as home prices declined. The paper then goes on to discuss the necessary conditions for perceived order in the universe to return, when buying is again the smart move. Over the next five years, which is about the average amount of time recent buyers have remained in their homes, prices in the Los Angeles area would have to rise more than 5 percent a year for a typical buyer there to do better than a renter. The same is true in Phoenix, Las Vegas, the New York region, Northern California and South Florida. In the Boston and Washington areas, the break-even point is about 4 percent. Read More...