Rent vs Buy - The age Old Question

     What are the real benefits to renting vs buying? Simple: living in anyone but your own families homes (if they even let you live there for free) means you are paying a mortgage ... either your own or someone else's. If you own the home it is called a mortgage, if you lease it is called "rent" but it does the same thing. It pays down the debt on the property and builds equity and (possibly wealth) for whom ever holds the title to that property. Is that going to be you or some stranger that you just happen to be supporting month after month, year after year? Put that money into your own pocket, own a home! 
     At the end of the lease, what do you have to show for all your hard earned and spent money? A box full of receipts. At the end of owning a home, you have a home, with value, to sell for real cash money! Or keep it to rent out for real cash money and let someone else pay your mortgage! Think anyone will want to give you real cash money for your box of rent receipts? Other benefits: In some places, rent has become so high that it is cheaper to buy! No more landlord to tell you what you can and can't do. You want blue walls? Paint them blue! Want a pet, get one! Today, there are still tax benefits to owning and some home expenses are tax deductible. Putting money into a home is a great investment. 
     Having real roots means not having to move around all the time. Even in a worse case scenario, say the home loses some value while you own it. You will still not have paid all that rent (to someone else's mortgage) and you still have a home with some value to sell. And while you have been living there, living the lifestyle you wanted, you have been paying down the debt so you may even have some "equity" (profit). You want hard facts and figures? Check out the chart above, it's just common sense. Figure out how much you have been paying in rent that you could be putting towards a home of your own . Owning makes sense. When you get tired of paying someone else's mortgage, contact me. I can get you started on the fast track to home ownership. Start building some wealth of your own. Let's make a plan.