Photo : Alena Mozhjer ( Shutterstock )

You’re out of debt, and you’ve start funneling your money toward your next big financial goal: buying a house.


For a long time, conventional wisdom seemed to be that you grow up and buy a home because that’s just what you do. But lately, people are realizing that it isn’t always the smartest financial move. Obviously, the housing crisis during the Great Recession has a lot to do with that—it’s made people question the standard assumption that homeownership equals financial stability.

For more on home buying, check out the video below:

How do you know if it’s a good idea for you? Should you buy a home, or keep renting?


Homeownership isn’t a good or bad idea on its own. Like so many financial decisions, it has everything to do with your own situation. Sometimes, buying a home is the smart thing to do; other times, it really isn’t. Whether or not it’s smart for you will depend on a few different factors. Here’s what you should keep in mind.



Don’t think of a home as your main investment

The biggest argument for owning a home is that it’s an “investment.” But a lot of people overestimate the return on this investment.


People tend to believe that homes are appreciating assets, but this isn’t always true. Yale economist and Nobel Prize winner Robert Shiller debates this topic openly, having crunched the numbers. His take is that that, overall, the housing market doesn’t have a great long-term return. It barely outpaces inflation, in fact. He told USA Today:

“If you look at the history of the housing market, it hasn’t been a good provider of capital gains. It is a provider of housing services...Capital gains have not even been positive. From 1890 to 1990, real inflation-corrected home prices were virtually unchanged.”


The Washington Post analyzed Shiller’s data in 2014 and reported that over the century prior, home prices only grew at a compound annual rate of 0.3%, adjusted for inflation. The S&P 500, on the other hand, had an annual return of 6.5%. That’s an awfully big difference.

While that single real estate asset might help protect you against inflation, a well-balanced stock and bond portfolio seems to be a better investment. But a lot of people’s portfolios are mostly made up of their home value. You wouldn’t put 80 percent of your portfolio in a bond simply to protect against inflation (unless maybe you were nearing retirement), so why would your home make up that same amount? That’s the argument against buying a home as investment.


You might still be able to time the housing market just right and sell at higher rate than Shiller’s data shows. But most experts agree: While housing is an investment, it’s not a great investment. So if this is your only basis for buying a home, it’s probably not the best one.

Decide how much you can afford

In deciding whether you can afford to buy, you’ll have to figure out how much home you’re able to buy in the first place.


One rule of thumb for figuring out this number: Your home should cost no more than 2.5 times your salary. Of course, this just gives you a ballpark figure. It doesn’t consider your net worth or your other financial goals.

Once you know the number you’re working with, you’ll have a better idea of whether or not buying a home is a smart financial move for you.


Weigh the opportunity cost of renting vs. buying

While your home might not be the best investment, in the end, it’s still yours. Even if it barely outpaces inflation as an investment, at the end of the day, you own it, and that’s worth something.


When you rent, you own nothing—the money goes to someone else. So lots of people argue that you should buy a home because one day you’ll pay it off and it’ll be yours, rather than continuing to pay rent for the rest of your life.

This argument touches on opportunity cost: the value of an option you’re giving up to choose something else. If you choose to rent, you’re missing out on owning an asset. Even if it doesn’t outpace inflation, who cares? You have an asset—a house—to show for all your money.


But it’s not that simple. You also have to consider the opportunity cost of buying. There’s the down payment. Closing costs. The mortgage interest payments. What’s the opportunity cost of those? How much could you earn by investing that money in the market instead?

Sometimes, you can actually earn more money over time by renting and investing than buying. But whether or not this is true depends on a few factors:

Your rent cost : If your rent is cheaper than a mortgage for a similar dwelling in your area, you may be able to invest the difference and earn a better long-term return.

: If your rent is cheaper than a mortgage for a similar dwelling in your area, you may be able to invest the difference and earn a better long-term return. Down payment and mortgage interest rate : Same story here. If you invested $50,000 instead of using it for a down payment, and also invested the amount you paid in interest over time, how much more would you have in the long term? In some cases, you’d have more than the value of your home.

: Same story here. If you invested $50,000 instead of using it for a down payment, and also invested the amount you paid in interest over time, how much more would you have in the long term? In some cases, you’d have more than the value of your home. Where you live: The housing market depends on many factors and changes, but where you live is a big one. Your rent prices and home prices may be a lot different than the national averages.


The New York Times has a useful interactive calculator that considers all of this. Plug in all of your details—home price, interest rate, housing growth rate, closing costs, rental costs, etc.—and you’ll get a detailed view of what the costs and opportunity costs are.

Most rent vs. buy calculators simply tell you how much you’ll save based on the home’s appreciation and considering your down payment, interest and monthly payments. But this calculator factors opportunity costs into the equation, which makes all the difference.


Consider your total net worth

Many experts say your home should only be between 20-40% of your total net worth. Over time, you’ll ideally have less invested in real estate as you grow your portfolio, but that percentage will rise again as you near retirement. It’s a general guideline that will depend on other factors like age and risk level.


As we’ve said, the point is: Your home should not be your primary asset. You shouldn’t give up your entire savings, especially your retirement savings, just to become a homeowner.

If that sounds unreasonable, you should, at the very least, have a healthy emergency fund saved before buying a home. You should also prepare savings for other expenses that will inevitably pop up—maintenance, decorations, improvements and so on.


Avoid being “house poor”

We’ve talked about following the 20% rule. It’s a very general rule of thumb that says you shouldn’t buy a home until you can afford a 20% down payment. Here’s the case for following the rule:

You won’t have to pay private mortgage insurance

You’re borrowing less, so your mortgage payments are smaller

You’ll usually pay a lower interest rate (or, at the very least, will pay less in interest in the long run because you’ll have a smaller loan)

It ensures you can truly afford the home

But some argue this rule is overkill and 20% is too much to put toward a home. The arguments against the rule:

In some areas, homes are so expensive, no one can afford to put that much down.

It makes more sense to put less down and invest the difference.

It’s too much of your net worth to give up at once. You don’t want to be house poor.


Twenty percent down or not, the concern about being “house poor” is a valid one. You don’t want all of your net worth to be tied up in your home, and that’s essentially what being house poor is—when you can’t afford to make ends meet because you’ve spent everything on a house.


For the first and last point, one might argue that you should simply continue renting and saving until you can afford to put down 20 percent (and still pay your monthly expenses with ease).

Obviously, you should have enough, after your down payment, to cover your mortgage and monthly expenses. But beyond simply making ends meet, you want to make sure you’re financially secure, too. This is why it’s important to consider your net worth.


And as we’ve said before: You don’t have to buy a home. Don’t forego financial basics and buy a house for emotional reasons or because it’s expected of you.


Whatever guideline you use to decide if you can afford a house or not, the takeaway is the same. It’s usually better to rent than it is to be house poor. The risk of living hand-to-mouth isn’t worth it.

Of course, beyond the money factors, you also want to consider your long-term goals. If there’s good chance you’ll sell the home in five years, it’s probably cheaper to rent (any rent-vs.-buy calculator will most likely tell you the same). Maybe you’ll move for a job. Maybe you’ll want a bigger home for a family. Your own individual milestones should play a part in your decision.


Ultimately, buying a home is a personal choice you’ll have to weigh, considering your own circumstances. Homeownership is not inherently a smart or dumb decision—it depends a lot on individual factors and where you are financially. But weighing these considerations should at least point you in the right direction.

This post was originally published in 2015 and was updated on June 30, 2020 by Lisa Rowan. Updates include the following: Checked links for accuracy, updated formatting to reflect current style, changed feature image, revised article to consolidate and update some of the content.