On Aug 21, 2007, at 11:19 AM, Miles Jackson wrote:
> You mean that a house with a mortgage payment of $6000/month would
> only
> rent for $1500/month? If so, why on earth do people buy houses in SF?
> You can live in a much nicer place for much less money if you rent.
> Does the mantra of "home ownership" drown out all rational analysis?
Yes. The ratio of purchase to rental costs reached an all-time high at the peak of the housing boom, and I doubt that it's narrowed all that much. The NYT has a buy/rent calculator on its website; for some plausible numbers in NYC, it would take you about 15 years to break even on buying over renting.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/10/business/2007_BUYRENT_GRAPHIC.html>.
By the way, Dean says that under his scheme, the rental payments would go to the holder of the defaulted mortgage, who'd have to allow the busted tenants to stay there as long as they want.
Doug