Please note that while this content is broadly applicable, it was originally intended for a Canadian audience. You can't compare rent to a mortgage payment. This way of thinking about the rent versus buy decision is extremely flawed. Comparing a mortgage payment to rent is not an apples to apples comparison. In order to properly assess the rent versus buy decision, we need to compare the total *unrecoverable costs* of renting to the total unrecoverable costs of owning. That may sound like a complicated task, but it can be boiled down to a simple calculation.
Feel free to contact me if you had any particular property or neighbourhood that you'd like me to compare the home value vs rent price for you!
