That you should buy a house is conventional wisdom, but what you will find here is unconventional wisdom. If you plan to buy a house and live in it for for many years, and you can walk or bike from it to everything you need, and if there are good schools nearby, and if the rent versus buy equation makes sense in your area, then by all means, buy a house. You need to take into account that there are costs to maintaining a house, and costs for buying and selling, and real estate taxes and mortgage interest. Yes, interest and tax may be deductible, but what does that actually mean? It means that, if you are in the 40% marginal tax bracket, you are still paying 60% of the taxes and interest. You are not throwing money away on rent. You are paying a certain price for a certain amount of space. Can you get a better deal by buying? In Detroit, probably yes. In New York City, probably no. Look at the buy versus rent calculators out there on the web and run your own numbers.