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" POINT/COUNTERPOINT  BUY A guy named Gene Fama invented the Efficient Market Hypothesis. He&amp;#039;s probably gonna win the Nobel prize in the next few years. Gene&amp;#039;s son Gene and I were having a drink (write it down: sons of future Nobelists drink vodka martinis) and arguing over just how efficient markets really are. Housing came up, and we quickly agreed that renting is basically an options play--a put, so to speak, or a bet that the real estate market will sink. He brought up a factor that&amp;#039;s hard to evaluate: consumer cost. Regardless of how well the theory works, the fact is that there&amp;#039;s nothing decent to rent. For certain individuals, particularly those who want to adapt their environs to taste or inhabit high net-worth areas, owning is the only game in town. That&amp;#039;s not a moot point, except to those who value economics over the real world. &amp;#039;Cause in the real world, whomever a renter pays money to is an owner, and if he&amp;#039;s willing to put up with renters, whatever profit he makes is money the renter no longer has. RENT By  Here are the truths home-buyers hate to hear: Renting is generally not more expensive. Landlords vie against the home-sellers in the market, and they price their lodging competitively. Even when you factor in the tax savings of ownership, rentals are still competitive. The market for homes, like that for pork bellies, goes up and down, sometimes viciously. Since most people buy a house with a 10 or 20 percent down payment, they come to possess something like one giant futures contract bought on leverage. When the price of that leveraged investment drops more than 20 percent, they can wind up deep in the hole. Just ask those who&amp;#039;ve lived through the real estate swings in Texas, the Northeast, and most of California and Alaska, when whole communities were left with mortgages far in excess of home values. Bankruptcies and foreclosures were rife. We&amp;#039;re again at a peak in the housing market, interest rates are climbing, and home-sellers face stiff competition from a glut of new construction. Home-buyer beware. ent. There&amp;#039;s a yield calculator that will tell you how you should decide between tax-free and taxable bonds. And, my favorite, it offers an organized, easy-to-navigate gateway to four hundred more sites that will lead you to information on buying and pricing just about any bond on the planet. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/lifestyle/money/a4178/point-counterpoint-buy-0800/>