Unless you have moved out of your parents house at a very young age being a renter for more than 10 years is just plain stupid because with all those $$$$$ wasted on rent you could have purchased a reasonably priced home. There are plenty of nice houses that even with maintenance costs and taxes you will still come out paying much less than what you will pay in rent over a decade.
This really depends on location.
For example, I live in Coastal Southern California.
Hindsight being 20/20, I should have bought a house in the late 90's. But:
1. I was the main breadwinner and my husband was in grad school. Still, a small ranch home could have been purchased for about $300k. Unfortunately, my income was $54k. That would have been a stretch.
2. We had always planned to move when he finished grad school (ended up staying)
3. We eventually bought a house, not at the top of the market but not too far off (it's been 11 years now, and our house is probably worth about $30k less than we paid for it). In that time, we have gotten to where we "own" about $300k of it and have a mortgage for the rest.
4. Here's how the rent vs. own worked out:
- Rent for 11 years on the duplex we were in (same size as our house, would have stayed): $256,800
- Total amount spent on house payments and prop tax during that time: $594,000
- Down payment - $157,000
- Total amount of maintenance on house: $60,000 (that's an estimate of major work such as roof, back yard, paint, floors, new windows, central heat installation, insulation. Does not include minor projects of $500 or less)
So, total spent on house = $811,000, minus equity $300,000 = $511,000 in "cost to own the house", minus tax savings of $135,000 (estimate) = $376,000
Total spent on rent during that time = $256,800
Would have been cheaper to keep renting.
Of course, the rent is an estimate - it could have gone up faster than I estimated. I did NOT make it go up at market rates, because our landlord tended to go with smaller increases and only go to market when unit changed hands. It could have been as high as $290,000.
Wow. I've never done that math before. It's kind of depressing. Ah well. At this point our mortgage matches what rent would be. So the numbers will go in our favor, eventually.
Edited because I'd forgotten to put the down payment in there. Ouch.