&gt; When you rent, you might as well be lighting that money on fire.<p>OK, try lighting that money on fire.  Then go live under a bridge because your rent money is ashes.<p>Rent gets you a roof over your head and it&#x27;s completely ridiculous when people claim it&#x27;s &quot;lighting money on fire&quot; or &quot;throwing money out the window&quot;.  Obviously it&#x27;s not because if it were &quot;lighting money on fire&quot; people wouldn&#x27;t do it.<p>Ownership also comes with expenses--maintenance, insurance--and with the substantial risk that your property will decrease in value or that you will need to move and take a loss on the sale.  Also, the transaction costs when buying and selling are considerable--agent commissions and taxes are thousands of dollars.<p>That doesn&#x27;t necessarily make buying a bad idea but renting is certainly nothing remotely close to &quot;lighting money on fire&quot;.