Rent or Buy? It's the Most Leveraged Bet You'll Ever Make (Explained by a Banker)

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Should You Rent or Buy a Home? The Half Nobody Checks

Buying wins on the money when you stay long enough to outrun the transaction costs — often roughly 8–12% of the price by the time you have bought and later sold — and when homes appreciate faster in real terms than your investments would. But the money is only half the decision. The other half is whether the position is safe for you: a 20% deposit means five-to-one leverage, so a 10% fall in the price removes half your equity; a house takes months to sell; and for a typical owner it is not one holding among several but the balance sheet itself, usually in the same city as the job. Read those four as a warning system, not a scorecard — one hard no outweighs the prettiest spreadsheet.

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