Own or rent?

I live in the place I rent and rent out the place I own.

Does that help you?

i think we should add age range also - from many of the posts the age bracket seems to be 12-18.

Rent, can't afford the $20 sandwich, rather get a $6 one at CarneViento and afford a good proseco (SP?) to wash away the tears.

I don't own. I PWN.

I think age has a lot to do with getting information. I own because I lived in PS for a long time.

Rent. will continue to rent til who knows when? it'll be years til i can even fathom a down payment. though we are not neighbors since i was priced out of the area last year. guess im just replying to this cause im drunk, bored and not tired enough to get a good night's sleep before work tomorrow.

Own and rent. In the long run its better to own. However, in todays market its much better to rent (price to own per rent collected has a huge gap right now). I would wait at least another year if I was in the market. Prices will come down with many condo's left unsold. Although I am not sure the market instability will effect park slope. park slope seems to be in a protective bubble.....so far.

Rent, and not owning until I know for sure I can afford it without putting my future in peril. This is why I can sleep easy at night during the financial crisis....

....and, when I own, it sure as hell ain't going to be some starter apartment in some part of NYC I never wanted to live in in the first place!

squat

My wife and I own. We bought a co-op apartment 32 years ago when prices were (by today's standards) absurdly low. Five years later we traded up to a house (with a large mortgage at ... wait for it... 17.5% interest).

We've refinanced about 5 times since then, to get to a more reasonable interest rate. I'd hate to think about how much we've paid the bank since we started.

That was the going rate in 1981. The only good thing about it was that it kept purchase prices from skyrocketing.

Citibank literally laughed in my face when I turned in our mortgage application... said our income was totally insufficient for the $125,000 loan we needed... refused to give us the loan.

The CFO of my then-employer made a phone call to the bank for me, and Citibank gave us the loan. Making the payments was a bitch for quite a long time.

LongTimeSloper wrote: Wow, we bought in 1985 and got a rate of 6.75% adjustable and the loan was for quite a bit less money. I guess a few years makes a big difference.

Well, it depends on which few years ya pick! But yah, prime peaked at 21.5% in '80-81. And you got a good rate fo shure at 6.75% in '85.

Prime Rate: Historical Data