[ryandrake]

Another thing to consider: You should not compare to your entire mortgage payment--only to the interest portion of the payment. The principal portion of the payment is not an expense: It goes from one of your pockets to the other because it is your own home equity. Also you need to apply any tax advantage you get from mortgage interest(in the USA it's deductible), so subtract your effective tax rate. You also need to add to that your estimated property taxes / 12 (and that's often tax deductible), and add any expected yearly expenses / 12.

So mortgage_interest * (1-T) + property_taxes/12 * (1-T) + home_expenses/12. Compare that to rent payment.