<prompt> Human: Id like to argue that in my personal living situation, it makes much more sense for me to rent than to own a home. I just want to see if you guys see any obvious flaws with my analysis.Rent: 295 month splitting 590month with roommateSaving: 1000 month invested in low cost SP vanguard fundAssumptions: Home appreciation approximately equal to returns of SP fundArgument:Lets say I want to buy a 200,000 home with a 20 down payment. At 4.5 interest I want to be conservative, my credit history is short, also this is for a 20 year loan my monthly payment is almost exactly equal to my rent plus savings of 1295. For it to make sense for me to own a home at this point, I would want my interest portion of my monthly payment to be less than 295. This is obviously no where near what I would actually end up paying. The ratio of interest to principal for the first payment is closer to 545 principal and 750 in interest. So it seems to me that it would make more sense to continue renting and build up a higher down payment to limit my overall interest for the life of the loan. This is also not even considering how much I would be saving in property taxes, homeowners insurance and other miscellaneous expenses related to owning a home. Also remember that the savings is being invested so it should appreciate at a rate somewhat close to the value of home appreciation.According to the amortization schedule I looked at, it would take 16 years before the interest to principal ratio would be better than what my current situation gives me.Is there anything I am missing here that throws a wrench in this idea? I am no expert, just a recent graduate trying to learn as much as possible about personal finance.  <response>: Before I bought my 3 bedroom house 11 years ago, I was sharing a 3 bedroom house with a bunch of friends and my rent was way below market rate for the area - 275 a month for my share. After buying, my mortgage, taxes and insurance shot up my housing expenses to 1500. In the past 11 years, Ive had roommates and lived alone in this house and i love being the one to make that decision. No landlord will give me a 30 day notice or tell me my rent is going up. In the beginning, i couldnt split the mortgage with one roommate evenly because 750 was above market rate. It took about 6 years before the rental market caught up with what my mortgage is and at this point, the house can rent for twice what my mortgage is. Studios are going for 1400-1500 in my area so I am pretty satisfied with my decision to buy 11 years ago. 