<prompt> Human: I know everybodys sick of the old chestnut of renting vs buying, but my situation is a bit different. Going to be moving to Portland, OR soon and we have the option of renting or purchasing a house for all cash. However, were not sure how long well be there--be it 1 year or 10 years. Now usually the clear answer would be to rent, but I feel like skipping a mortgage changes a lot about this answer. Am I wrong?Heres my quick couch-math. Rent utils would be maybe 2kmo. House would be, say, 300k that wed pay right away. Lets say closing costs on buyingselling house are 6, property tax is 3kyr, and utils are 3kyr. Then after only the first year, renting costs 24k and buying house costs the same, 24k. But if you factor in appreciation 5 in Portland then the house is worth 315k by end of year, so its like you really only spent 9k. After year 2 with renting youre 48k in the hole whereas with the house youve spent 30k but the house has also potentially appreciated by 30k even if it doesnt appreciate at all it seems like youre still better off than renting.So by that admittedly sketchy logic, it seems like going the house route is pretty much always going to better in this case. Am I oversimplifying things?P.S. - Before anybody mentions it, yes I know itd technically be better to not pay cash for the house and instead leverage and invest that money. I really just prefer the peace of mind in not having a mortgage see here  <response>: You are oversimplifying things and you logic sucks. You are leaning towards buying because you count the house price appreciation in the buying scenario without counting on any returns on the 300k that you get to keep in the stock marketbonds in the renting scenario. I dont know if house prices or stock prices will result in one beating the other, but not considering both unfairly favors the housing. 