<p>The thing that is striking to me about this calculator is how much of a difference 1% in annual price appreciation makes. I plugged in the following parameters:</p>
<p>Rent: $2500, Buy: $650,000 Down Payment: 10% Rate: 6.25% Tax Rate: 1.9% (I am including Mello Roos on new homes for an effective rate) , <strong>Home Appreciation 4% annual</strong>, Rent Increase 3% annual</p>
<p>Results: <strong><u>Buying is only better than renting after 27 years! At year five, renting would have cost roughly 60K less than buying. </u></strong>This doesnt even factor in outlay that goes towards HOA's....<strong><u>
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<p>When you keep all factors the same, except you just increase annual appreciation from 4% to 5%: </p>
<p>Results: <strong><u>Buying is better than renting after 7 years!! At year five renting would have cost roughly 25K less than buying.</u></strong></p>
<p>You are talking about a 20 year long-term difference, and $35K difference after 5 years due to one percentage point of annual price appreciation?!? Are we really betting on as little as a single percentage point of annual price appreciation?! Of course, I understand all the arguments of FALLING prices and how long it might take us from this point to even see 5% annual price appreciation year-over-year, but one percentage point seems like such a small amount to "predict" that makes such a big difference in the comparison....</p>