ne portland home for sale sold

A recently sold home in Northeast Portland, shown Jan. 17.

(Elliot Njus/The Oregonian)

Rising rents are shrinking the amount of time it takes for Portland-area homeowners to realize a financial advantage over renting.

According to

, Portland-area buyers who stay in their home for 2.2 years will be better off than if they had rented a similar home. This time a year ago, Zillow said the "breakeven horizon" for a home purchase was 3 years.

The analysis weighs the costs of buying a home — including the higher up-front transactional costs — against monthly rents, deposits and other costs of renting. It also takes into account estimates of future home-value appreciation and rent growth.

Now, with rents rising and mortgage rates staying relatively low, the gap is shrinking.

But were the decision only so easy.

Renters who could afford the monthly costs of homeownership and who might benefit from its advantages might have trouble qualifying for a mortgage or saving for a down payment. They may also prefer flexibility over being tied down to a house and a mortgage.

And the breakeven point isn't uniform across the Portland area. Zillow says it's as low as 1.2 years in parts of the metro and as high as 4.5 years in others.

-- Elliot Njus