<prompt> Human: I live near Detroit and Im 27. I dont really know where I want to live long term.I rent a house that I share with two other roommates. We split the rent evenly. I make roughly 47k yr. My share of the rent is 233. The taxes on the property are 3000yr. I feel like Im coming out ahead, because Im renting the property for less than Id be paying on taxes on it. And living with roommates and sharing spaces is something Im totally cool with. I wanted to do this until I paid off my 38k in student loan debt which will actually be this year BTW!. He told me Im throwing away money because I could be investing it in home equity. I told him I just invest all the money that I would have as a homeowner into index funds and paying off my loans, because Im living off less than taxes, and that pretty much after the first thing happened and was repaired, Id be out ahead of a homeowner, because Id have a landlord fix it. He told me Im throwing away money every time I pay my landlord. I told him that if I was owning the property id be paying the same money in property taxes and home repairs. Im trying to figure out if Im making some suboptimal decision staying a renter right now, or if this is basically a near equal situation and hes just high on the fact that he does have a house he owns and renters.  <response>: This has been discussed extensively in this subreddit It even has an entry in the FAQShort answer: It depends on your specific situation. Buying is not always better there are expenses and risks associated with buying that people often minimize or ignore. Plus if you have significant other debts there may be benefits in delaying buying.And renting is not throwing away money, because you get something back in exchange for that money, namely a place to live, flexibility to move, and a much lower capital requirement. 