this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2026
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Actually Infuriating
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You missed the important considerations, so I'm going to ask you to go ahead and recalculate.
Rent increases annually. Go ahead a pick a reasonable percentage you can expect for that increase.
Mortgage payment does not increase (at least the principal and interest part of a fixed-rate mortgage does not. Taxes and Insurance might, but they are a tiny part of the total payment).
The value of a home reliably appreciates in the long term, but your loan payment is based on the value at the time of purchase, not the continuing, increasing value of the property. Historically, the rate of appreciation is comparable to that of rental increase. So whatever reasonable number you estimated above, you should use that here as well.
I think it important to note that "Equity" != "paid principal on the loan". Equity is the current market value of the property minus the outstanding principal on the loan.
Basically, the numbers you provided might make sense for the first year. They don't make sense for the second year, or any later year in your entire lifetime.
This is a common and valid concern, but it is a seriously overblown one. A Home Equity Line of Credit offers access to that equity with much better terms than a credit card. Banks love lending to homeowners.
Added info as requested. Averaged over 25 years it's $600/mo more but still nothing crazy.
I moved here from across the country on about a 2 week notice, and booked 3 weeks in a motel but ended up staying with a relative, while looking for a place. I don't know if I would be able to close a sale and move in that quickly depending on the market.
Again I grant there are obvious benefits to homeownership, but not many have $50k+ lying around (those with parents who have that money lying around have bought houses for their kids), and so I wouldn't say renting needs to die in a fire. Homes have been assumed to be a perpetually appreciating asset but that's what has attracted private equity and speculators so I really think that assumption needs to die first before renting.
By your stated numbers, your net expenditure is $1600/mo in housing expenses when you buy, and $2500/mo when you rent. $1000 in interest, $400 in condo fees, $200 in taxes, insurance.
The remaining $1900 of your $2900 monthly mortgage payment is effectively being moved into your savings account called "Equity". That's still yours. You may not like being compelled to transfer it to a different "account", but you're not actually losing that money, so you don't get to count it as an expenditure.
$1600/mo to buy. $2500/mo to rent.
Those are the numbers that you provided. I feel they were skewed in your favor from the start, especially since you started with a condo instead of buying something free and clear. But even your wildly biased numbers prove my point. Your numbers tell me you are paying a $900/mo premium to your landlord for the privilege of not having to move $1900/mo from your checking account to your "savings" account.
You are paying $900 so you don't have to save an additional $1000.
Yes, "savings account" is the appropriate metaphor. Again: If you need it, you can access that money with a home loan, a HELOC, a cash-out refinance, etc.
Also, you glossed over appreciation: A normal savings account earns less than 1% interest. Money market accounts earn about 3% on what you put into them. Your "equity-brand savings account" earns 2%-4% interest on $500,000. Not the $1900 monthly payments you keep adding. 2%-4% interest on $500,000 you didn't have, from day one.
Are you beginning to understand why I am so fucking pissed at the entire idea of renting?
No, I'm being fair and doing my best to steelman your argument. I rounded up my rent to $1900 and I rounded down the purchase price from $530k to $500k and rounded associated interest payments down to $2900 and as you requested applied the same timeline to averaging 25 years of rentership compared to a 25 year mortgage even if in my timeline I expect to stay for 5, probably, and you know that less goes to principal at the start of a loan term than the end. My rent didn't even go up this year despite the legal maximum being 2.3%, which I used, I think our property manager is currently slightly worried about people moving out from cooling rents. I already said ownership of even a rowhome would either be 50% more expensive or I'd have to move much further out of the city.
I can understand why you'd be upset but even after looking at these numbers, there are undeniably benefits in my opinion it's still not as big of a deal as you think it is.
As a second anecdote, buddy of mine in Toronto bought a semi-detached house in Scarborough to live in with parents' help for $1.1m, prices now are 900k to 1m, he's paying $4400/mo after needing to refinance to a 30 yr mortgage. 45-50% (averaged over 30 years) of the payments are toward interest, though at this moment 95% of his payments are towards interest. He feels stuck there.
Buddy, you're trying to backpedal $10,800 of losses per year. Further, you didn't include the same percentage of appreciation on the market value of the house. Using your 2.3% figure (which is less than inflation, and thus absurdly conservative) that's another $11,500. By renting under the terms you described, you are pissing away $22,300 per year.
They say that the lottery is a tax on people who are bad at math. Renting has a much worse ROI than the lottery. This is why I suggested an RV, or couch surfing, or even living in a car until you can afford an RV.
With the amount of value you are losing due to renting, you could literally buy a new car (albeit an economy car) each and every year. If you pulled a $50 bill out of your wallet each and every day, and just set it on fire, you would lose less than renting under the terms you described.
Sure. He's got a theoretical loss in value of $100-200k. He presumably put down $220,000, so worst case, he still has $20,000 of value in the house, plus the payments he's made against principal. What is that house going to be worth next year? In 5 years? What would have to happen for the value of that house to stay under $1.1m for the next 25 years? Even if he had bought at the height of the housing bubble in 2008, by 2012-2016, prices had dipped and rebounded.
Yeah, that sucks.
That sucks more. You know what sucks more than that? 100% of payments going towards "interest", and no equity. That situation is called "rent".