Arguments morphed in recent years as home prices and mortgage rates soared beyond increasing rents
By Jeff Goertzen1 | jgoertzen@scng.com | Orange County Register and Jonathan Lansner | jlansner@scng.com | Orange County Register
PUBLISHED: September 28, 2025 at 6:00 AM PDT
https://www.mercurynews.com/2025/09/28/is-it-better-to-rent-or-own-that-depends/
The debate over renting vs. owning has long posed a challenge for households in California. Arguments have morphed in recent years as home prices and mortgage rates soared beyond the increasing rents. To illustrate the complexities, we’ve created a hypothetical rent vs. buy scenario to track housing finances over a 30-year period. However, the math doesn’t account for the intangibles: the flexibility of renting compared to the stability of owning.
HOW MONTHLY COSTS COMPARE
Key in any housing calculation is monthly cost. Our example estimates California house rent today at $4,000 a month vs. buying a $900,000 house with a 10% down mortgage at 6.5% plus property taxes, insurance, association fees, and repairs. The scenario assumes costs grow with historical inflation and the mortgage rate is lowered twice by a half-point through refinancing.
RUNNING THE TAB
Homeowners need to repay their mortgage plus cover a range of additional costs. So renting’s total costs run cheaper for nearly two decades. But owning ends up costing slightly less over time. Here’s cumulative costs by year, in thousands of dollars.