[mattgibson]

These calculators seem to miss the point for me.

If I spend less overall by renting, I don't care because I can't pass the property as an inheritance to my kids. If I buy, they get a house for free when I pass on.

Also, if I rent, I have to continue to pay the same (high) rents through retirement where my income will likely drop drastically once I stop full time work. The aim of buying is to be mortgage-free when you retire so your pension gives you a decent quality of life.

[ska]

You aren't looking at the calculations correctly, where the rent is a "win" it's because your overall net worth is higher than if you had bought.

You might not have the house to pass to your kids, but you would have more cash than the value of the house. As to your second point, think of it this way: the tipping point on these two means you could just buy the house cash when you retire, and end up with more money in the bank also.

[anotherman554]

The more sophisticated calculators allow you to compare buying and spending more on housing per month vs renting at a cheaper price and investing the extra money you have in the stock market. (Although many people may not have such discipline, and renting costs verse purchase costs are going to vary from market to market.)

There's no advantage to passing on a house to kids verse passing on stocks. Also, similarly, there's no advantage to going mortgage free in retirement verse being rich on stocks and selling the stocks to buy a house 30 years from now, or paying rent by selling stocks.

[TomVDB]

> There's no advantage to passing on a house to kids passing on stocks.

Except for Proposition 13 in California, which allows you to pass on your real estate tax to your inheritors once.

In the case of my neighbors, that means their son will pay ~$1200 in taxes per year vs ~$30k for us who own an identical house.

[HWR_14]

Repealing Prop 13 seems like the most important single change that can be made to the California real estate market.

[HWR_14]

The calculators are used for "Downpayment is HHHHHH, mortgage is XXXX/month. Renting is (XXXX-YYYY) a month. HHHHH and (XXXX-YYYY)/month invested in [other investment] for 30 years = Z,ZZZ,ZZZ." Then you compare all the Z's the the estimated price of the house.

And the more it includes (expected rent changes, repairs, HOA fees) the better the math becomes.