[MightyDog]

I was crunching numbers on this very thing about a month ago and, in some cases, the OP is right.

Don't have the math paper right in front of me but, as rough example: If you have 250 to 300K in cash that you were going to use to buy a house and instead buy a T-Bill or CD for almost 5% that generates $12,500 annually for the 250k and $15,000 for the 300K.

I've seen monthly rents on many decent homes at $2000 so, 24K per year cost to rent. The rents include: water, sewer, trash, landscaping, pest control, amenity fee, repairs and, of course, property tax. Renter pays for electric, cable and internet....as additional cost.

So, if you add all the items the owner covers (that would be additional cost to you if you plunked down the big cash for a home purchase) it starts to get quite interesting to rent. My final numbers were something like $6000 or $7000 net out-of-pocket on an annual basis to rent currently if you don't require large or fancy digs.