Several years ago one of our friends was getting married.  I of course quizzed him about it and learned that they had been living together for the last seven years.  They didn’t get married earlier because the finances just didn’t make sense.  They estimated that they saved a significant amount of money by not marrying.  The only reason they finally decided to get married is they wanted to have kids and felt that getting married made things simpler.

So let me get this straight.  Marriage is now strictly a financial and legal decision?  Next thing I’ll hear is that people do not want to have kids because they cost too much… Oh wait… I think I have heard that too.

The same type of decision applies to renting or buying.  I am flat out sick of hearing whether renting is better than buying and seeing numerous articles on Yahoo and other places insisting that now is the time to rent – not buy.

This is completely untrue.  There is never a better time to rent than buy.  Having your own home is a dramatic improvement to your life.  Even if you were renting a house instead of an apartment, if you own your house you can make it your own.  You have far more flexibility to do what you wish with the property than if you had rented it.  There is also the feeling that this property is yours – not someone else’s.

I remember when we first bought our house and the joy it brought us.  No more fighting with neighbors for the laundry machines or listening to footsteps upstairs.  We could entertain far more people than at our apartment and they actually had room to park.  It was a dramatic improvement in our quality of life.

That is what gets me so riled up about the rent vs. buy decision, as you are monetizing something that simply is priceless.