Real Life Rent vs. Buy Example

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After getting a salary bump I figured it was finally time to move out of my basement apartment and step into something a little more up scale. I've become a lot more sensitive to noise over the years and apartments just weren't cutting it. So I started looking for a house to rent.

Craigslist is a necessary evil in this case. I was looking for a rental house with 2 or more bedrooms, a washer/dryer and in the maple leaf, green lake, wallingford and northgate area. I contacted about 30 different people via email and telephone and only received responses back from 8 of those people. Of those 8 I was only able to step foot in 6 houses. Prices varied from $1375 - $1800. Finally I found a dated but lovely 2bd/1.5ba in the maple leaf area for $1450. I think my girlfriend and I will be very happy there.

According to Zillow the house is worth $400K. If I use the defaults on the NY times calculator with .7% property taxes and the default settings for rent and home appreciation I'll break even after the 24th year.

Of course with my salary I don't think I could even get a loan for a house that costs that much. But I guess I'm just one of those bitter renters everyone is talking about. Thanks SeattleBubble for saving me a lot of money over the next few years.