[titanomachy]

"I'd estimate that the point at which my hypothetical lifetime expenditure on owning a house drops below my hypothetical lifetime expenditure on renting would come a decade or so after the point at which I can expect to die."

Can you share some of the numbers you used to get to that conclusion? I've done similar estimates in my (high cost-of-living) city, and even with pretty conservative estimates of property value growth the payoff is much sooner. Yes, the mortgage payments are more than rent for a comparable home, but the interest (plus estimated taxes, maintenance, etc) is somewhat less than rent.

I'd guess one of the following is true:

* you are assuming stock market returns will significantly outstrip growth in your housing market, even considering leverage

* you don't have access to tax breaks on mortgage payments

* you are much older than 30

* you live in an area where home prices are wildly inflated beyond what rents would predict

[bunderbunder]

I don't have my notes or the exact numbers anymore. It sounds like we might have been doing a very different calculation. For me, I didn't consider property value growth at all. That all just sort of went into a bucket labeled, "Equity I have invested in some asset; regardless of whether it went into a house or into T-bills or ICOs, for my purposes none of it counts as money I spent."

From there I just looked at the money I would never see again - interest, taxes, maintenance, fees, assessments (if a condo), etc.