Buy/Rent Calculator in the New York Times

Here's an excellent Buy/Rent comparison calculator on the New York Times site. It lets you enter rent value / purchase value, interest rate, property taxes and then adjust sliders for house appreciation and rent increases.

What with recent complaints about 'affordability' in the lower mainland I was curious about how some local real estate would compare, so I entered some number for this house I found on craigslist since it listed a selling price and current leased rental income.

With rental income of $1170 and an asking price of $419,800 you get some interesting results by playing with sliders on that calculator. for instance: 25% down payment at 6.25% interest rate - if the house appreciates by 10% a year over 30 years you're better off buying after just one year, but if the house appreciates an average of 5% a year over 30 years you're better off renting.

There are a lot of variable there - if you have some numbers from the local market its worth plugging them in and checking out the results.

Note: Since this is a US site I assume they are taking into account the mortgage tax write off, which we don't have here in Canada.

UPDATE: dingus points out this Canadian buy/rent calculator.

US housing market as a rollercoaster

Spark posted this link in an earlier thread. If you havent seen this yet its worth watching: the US housing market from 1890 to the present rendered as a rollercoaster ride. You really get a visceral feel from the peaks and dips.


This video was created by the fine folks at speculativebubble.com

.. so who wants to make one of these for the GVRD? I bet the 1980-82 section would be particularly exciting.

Lumber prices dropping.

It looks like we may not be totally immune to the housing market woes in the US - In the previous thread Freako posted this link: Lumber prices are down almost 25% from a year ago. How much of the BC economy is based on wood trade with the US?