[floppydisk]

They're growing rent until they hit the breaking point that no one will pay. Many of the families in my metro area are 2-parent working families and many of the big corp positions here tend towards mid to senior level or executive positions with the requisite salary and landlords keep pushing the rent up so long as people are willing to continue paying it. For single people, it's common to be cramming 4+ into a single family home (which pushes rent down to <$1k/person depending, not including utilities). For married folks, I hope you're both working and bringing in bank. Apartments tend to be more reasonable than single family homes, depending on location, but they're still quite high (1br apartments are between 1.6k-3k+/mo depending on the building. Closer you are to a metro or major roadway, substantially higher price).

In essence, we're a victim of our own success. Back in the day, life revolved around the city center and much of what is the 'burbs now was farm land. Overtime, as more people moved to the area, the cheap real estate was always al little bit further out from the city so people would saddle up and buy a house (with a 20-30 commute as the penalty) for a reasonable price. Over time, companies started building offices in the 'burbs, more people kept moving to the area, and the creep has pushed "affordable" out almost 20-30miles from the city center (commute time >1hr). Factor in the road networks are terrible, and mass transit stations are rare enough that real estate near them commands a premium and you find people willing to fork over a chunk of change in rent to not have a terrible commute either to city center or their 'burb job. Houses for sale, in the neighborhoods closer to the city, with good schools, not terrible commute etc, are generally priced for 2-income families. (>$500k).

Yes, the tradeoff between renting and buying is you assume the risk and costs of maintenance in buying. Most of the rentals i know of (single family homes or townhouse) push the cost of utilities onto the renter so really, all we aren't paying for is standard house maintenance and taxes. I'd rather assume the costs and risks of maintenance and taxes (and budget for them accordingly) and live with a fixed housing cost rather than continue fighting variable costs and potentially cranky landlords. Nothing makes a good housing situation sour faster than a bad land lord.