>>> "... if Americans could be persuaded that rent payments aren't
>>> "wasted money" and that owning often makes less financial sense than
>>> renting ...
>>
>> I've seen numbers comparing renting and owning that show advantages
>> to renting.
>
> My granny used to tell me that you should never compare apple and
> oranges unless you're looking to prove redness or smoothness. It
> seems to me that there's not going to be a reliable set of numbers to
> prove either one: you'd have to project the future value of real
> estate to do that, and you'd have to pick the timing of when you move.
>
> Without a crystal ball, you're sunk on this one.
>
But abstracting for analytical purposes, couldn't you just use the assumption that house prices will rise at the rate of inflation, which is their long-term path?
SA