Rent or Buy? It really is up to you.

The New York Times has fomented a lively discussion in the comments section of last Thursday’s article on whether renting or buying a home makes better sense these days.

The answer -- as it's always been -- is that it depends on many variables, but most particularly it depends on the home and on you.

Still, the Times makes some important points about how one analyzes the financial aspects of what is not always a straightforward decision.  And it offers up a really cool online tool for figuring the various financial ingredients that go into the decision-making cauldron; ingredients such as the price of the house and interest rate, of course; but also less prominent ones like how long you intend to occupy the place, the rate of inflation and the opportunity costs of not putting one's assets into alternative forms of investment.

The calculator weighs 21 distinct factors clustered into eight broad categories: home price, length of stay, mortgage terms, projected future price increases, taxes, closing costs, maintenance and fees, and additional rental costs like the security deposit and broker’s fee.

In major metropolitan areas, notably New York, Boston, Washington, San Francisco and Los Angeles, house prices gone up to the point that some fear a bubble is forming, and renting – never a bargain in any of those cities – is looking more and more like the better deal.

Central Pennsylvania and Lancaster particularly are much less volatile markets, subject to less rapid appreciation and much less turbulence after a cycle has peaked. 

We’re reminded in the end that the most important variable in making the ownership versus rental decision is captured in the old saw about location. And it bears noting that there are locations within locations, such as the neighborhood-to-neighborhood differences in market dynamics between, say, downtown Lancaster, Grandview Heights, Chestnut Hill and Hamilton Park.

So go have some fun with the New York Times’ nifty calculator tool, but also be mindful of what one of the online commentators – Dora of Brooklyn – observed:

“People don't seem to see a house or apartment as a home anymore, a place that grows roots, neighbors, that over-used word, community.  This is a part of life that shouldn’t always be monetized if you don't have to.”

When all is said and done, the best informed decisions are often the ones that take full account of what your heart tells you as well as your pocketbook.