The own vs. rent conundrum my wife and I confronted early in our marriage (33 years this coming year) is well behind us, what with both a primary home and a vacation home in our real estate portfolio today. But with a daughter about to be a university graduate with stable job prospects, we are into the discussion all over again. She and her boyfriend have been blunt: “We don’t want to waste money on renting.”
My first instinct is to mutter, “Youth is wasted on the young” and then make the case for patience, establishing a career first, maybe investing excess earnings in the stock market or some other money-grower. And yet, when I think about it, I remember the charge I got when I figured out that buying my first home and paying monthly principal, interest and taxes would save me $100 a month compared with my “wasted” rent at the time. (Note: The home was a brand new cedar and stone contemporary on a beautiful, sloping treed lot north of Atlanta that I bought for $43,000. It was 1978. If I had stayed in that home during the full duration of my 30-year mortgage, it would be worth more than $500,000 today.)
