Rent Vs. Buy

Renting in New York can get exhausting–the dreaded lease renewal letters, the constant moves, the thought of shelling out tens of thousands of dollars each year to pay someone else's mortgage. But is it really worth it to buy a home in NYC? According to data from personal finance site SmartAsset, it's only a good decision after you've lived in New York for 18.2 years, longer than anywhere else in the nation by far (h/t Business Insider). The study looked at 29 major cities across the U.S. and calculated their breakeven point–"the point at which the total costs of renting become greater than the total costs of buying." As a baseline, they used a household earning $100,000 annually with a 4.5 percent mortgage rate, a 20 percent down payment, and $2,000 in closings costs.
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