[shadowoflight]

I live in a low-mid CoL city, so I guess this is all super YMMV, but even with a 5% down payment, a decent home would run me around $1.5k/mo in mortgage payments (including interest, principal, PMI, and an escrow payment for taxes and insurance), whereas an equivalent rental would run well over $2k/mo, possibly closer to $2.5k/mo.

Sure, I can (and do) rent an apartment for less than a house, but that means rent increases whenever the owner feels like it - my rent has been steadily increasing to the tune of about 5%/yr, and this year it was all the way up to a 7% increase.

[everdrive]

I was in a similar boat years ago. The company I rented from wanted to increase my rent 12% year over year. I told them I didn't make 12% more money, spent a lot of time pleading, and talked them down to merely 9%. Rents were all over the place, and there was little I could do about, except move to a new apartment every year.