My point is that the rent I pay is below-market, and held there by stabilization.

Which I would have REALIZED had I noticed that the post was by Jesse and not Jessica. D'oh!

This is what I get for reading to fast. Duh.

Assuming you can afford the downpayment, yes.

Yes, I meant as compared to CA, where the property tax structure serves as a complete disincentive to new homebuyers.

I meant as compared to CA, where the property tax structure serves as a complete disincentive to new homebuyers.

Ah, gotcha.

Which I would have REALIZED had I noticed that the post was by Jesse and not Jessica. D'oh!

Pssst, Trudy, Jesse's the cowgirl.

But it all depends on the timing and where you are--in the past few years, the market was so crazy, in a lot of cities you could rent an apartment for CONSIDERABLY less than the monthly mortgage price on a condo. And everyone was like "Yes but then you OWN it! And the market will never go down! And it'll be worth buckets of money!" And...not so much, these days. For some people yes. For others, no. It just all depended. But I'm just as happy that I was renting, and paying $1K a month, for an apartment that some of the people in my (condo) building were paying easily twice that in a mortgage. Sure, I was "throwing it away" and they have "equity", but when I lost my job and wanted to move, I didn't have to worry about market timing meaning that my "equity" was suddenly underwater...

Even including our coop maintenance fee, we're paying less for housing now (with a mortgage) than we were renting 2 years ago.

For us rent vs buy was strongly influenced by the fact that we couldn't rent the equivalent for the same amt as our mortgage. We'd either need to move to an entirely different area or we'd need to significantly downsize or both. But in general I'd say that rent vs own needs to be decided on an individual basis. I do worry sometimes that having virtually all our equity in our home = not having equity.

Also?

I went to California when I was in my old house. I mentioned in a conversation that it was a 3BR house I bought for $45,000 and I think some locals almost went into shock.

Not shock, just tears.

Do those people still have those accounts, and if so, with whom and how has that worked?

Don't know if I'm one of those people, but I have an ING savings account. It's great, although the interest's been going down recently.

I have an ING savings account

That's the one. I want someplace where I can squirrel away maybe $20 bucks a month for a Vegas trip and not have it eaten up by maintenance fees.

eople here were talking about some online bank that had a great savings plan. Do those people still have those accounts, and if so, with whom and how has that worked?

connie, we have had ING accounts for several years now and it's worked out really well for us. Obviously the interest rates these days aren't so great but when things were better, they got to 4.5, 4.75%. We have different accounts for different things and we are able to schedule automatic payments really easily to line up with paydays, etc.

The only potential downside is that it takes a day or two for the monesy to transfer back to your checking if you need it. I actually see this as an upside, because it keeps my mitts off the money unless I really need it.

If you're interested in opening an account, let me know, and I'll do a refer a friend thing- I think it gets you $25 and me $10 if you join up (with a deposit of $250).

No maintenance fees, I don't believe. Yeah, it's totally great for things like that, although I think there are other companies offering good deals too.