Khan Academy has a pretty good introductoryrent vs own video. As has been mentioned above, the answer depends heavily on your career and preferences, as well as a bunch of values specific to your circumstance (Khan notes he rigged the numbers so renting came out ahead economically, but he could’ve just as easily come to the opposite conclusion by changing some values. I count something like 7 free variables (rent, house cost, down payment, loan interest, property tax, upkeep, investing returns), not counting the intangibles.)
An argument relevant to men interested in women: to my knowledge, women find men who own homes more attractive than men who rent (who, I’m guessing, are more attractive than couch surfers. According to Mark Manson’s model (which is on empirically sketchier grounds, although he’s the only guy whose dating advice I’ve seen unanimously recommended in the LWsphere), being a couch surfer will do little to impair a man’s ability to have one-night stands, but will greatly impair his ability for anything longer-term.)
Khan Academy has a pretty good introductory rent vs own video. As has been mentioned above, the answer depends heavily on your career and preferences, as well as a bunch of values specific to your circumstance (Khan notes he rigged the numbers so renting came out ahead economically, but he could’ve just as easily come to the opposite conclusion by changing some values. I count something like 7 free variables (rent, house cost, down payment, loan interest, property tax, upkeep, investing returns), not counting the intangibles.)
An argument relevant to men interested in women: to my knowledge, women find men who own homes more attractive than men who rent (who, I’m guessing, are more attractive than couch surfers. According to Mark Manson’s model (which is on empirically sketchier grounds, although he’s the only guy whose dating advice I’ve seen unanimously recommended in the LWsphere), being a couch surfer will do little to impair a man’s ability to have one-night stands, but will greatly impair his ability for anything longer-term.)