<prompt> Human: I have to move every 3-4 years for work, and so does everyone else I work with military. A LOT of coworkers buy and sell a house at each duty station, because someone told them, Since you never see rent money again, buying a house is usually the better financial decision. And Im here to tell you thats BS when youre buying a home for a short time less than 4 years. Just like rent, there is a lot of money going out the door when you _own_ a home that youll never see again.Traditionally, owning a home is pitched as a good investment, because you build equity in the home by paying off the mortgage principal. True statement. But consider all the rest of the money you have to shell out along the way to do that: Mortgage interest this is usually the largest piece of the pie, especially early in the mortgage Property taxes Home owners insurance HOI Flood insurance Mortgage insurance if your downpayment was less than 20 Maintenancerepairs Condo or HOA fees for those types of communities Realtorlawyer fees when selling and sometimes buying Closing costs buying and sellingIn some cases, these can total to be more than what it would cost you to rent a similar place, especially over a short time horizon less than 4 years. The reason for this is because the interest on the mortgage is the greatest amount when the principal of the mortgage is still high i.e., early in the mortgage.Taking a completely arbitrary example but using realistic numbers, lets say you can afford a 250K home, you have 25K 10 to put on the downpayment, with a 30-year fixed rate mortgage at 4.50. The property tax rate in your area is 2.00.If you put that info into a mortgage calculator, it will say your mortgage payment is 1140month which includes the interest on the mortgage, plus your principal payment. Sweet! you say, because thats pretty affordable for a 250K home. But wait. Property tax 4500year 375mo HOI 87.50mo Source: Zillow, 35mo per 100K of home value Flood insurance cost can vary from 0 to a LOT over 100mo Mortgage insurance 93.75mo assuming 0.5 of borrowed amount of 225K Maintenancerepairs 2500year 208mo based on 1 of homes value to use or save toward repairsHow much you might spend on realtors, lawyers, and condo fees is completely dependent on the situation, and I wont swag those numbers here. Hopefully Im able to make my point without themjust keep those costs in mind if they apply to your situation.Now, if you total all of that up, what you get is: 1904 and change per month to own. Plus, youre building equity in the home! All the better. But if you take a closer look at that mortgage payment of 1140, theres something important. How much interest are you paying versus principal in that 1140?You cant quantify this as a set number, because it changes every month. When you make a payment, part of the principal is reduced, so the interest on the principal is less the next month. But you can average it out over set periods of time.In this example, with your very first 1140 payment you pay 844 in interest and 296 towards equity. Over the first year, you will have made 13,680 in total mortgage payments; 10,050 of that will have been purely interest on the loan. Only 3630 will have been equity in your home. After 4 years, the numbers are 54,720 total, of which 39,170 is interest and 15,550 is equity. In that 4 year span of time, the average amount you paid in mortgage interest per month was 816 39,170 divided by 48 months.So, the final analysis has to be: once I tally all the money that goes out the door when I buy, is it more or less than what I can rent which is also money out the door? In this example: 816 average mortgage interest over 4 years 375 taxes 87.50 HOI 93.75 PMI 208 repairs fund Any other costs lawyer, realtor, condo, flood insurance, etc.Total 1580, plus other costs. Yes, I acknowledge some will say 200mo for repairs is a lot, but you have to budget for repairs somehow, and a good rule of thumb is 1 of the value of the home per year. If you can rent a place that fits your needs for 1580 or less, youre doing better renting the place than you would if you bought the 250K house in this example. You can investsave what equity you would be building, plus you dont take on the risk of owning the home depreciation, unforeseen costs.TL;DR Yes, you never see your rent money again, but theres a ton of money when you own a home that you never see again either. You need to make sure the dead money when owning is less than the dead money when renting.  <response>: I think its pretty common sense that buying a home for a short time is not smart unless you are fixing it up to sell 