Nicole Lappin

But I will be fair and I'll start with some cases for buying a home.

The big one is equity.

The logic goes instead of handing rent money over to a landlord every month, you buy a home and you build wealth through ownership.

In theory, this makes perfect sense.

Each mortgage payment you make chips away at the loan balance and over time you own more and more of your home.

And then after 30 years or whenever your mortgage ends, you own your home.

The end.

Happily ever after.

No more mortgage, no more monthly payments for your home.

Then you've got this big, valuable asset that you can borrow against.

You could pass it down or you could sell, hopefully for a profit.

It's also pretty cool that the interest on your mortgage is tax deductible.

I do love a tax deduction where I can get it.

And if you do have a fixed rate mortgage, your monthly costs will be constant.

If you're renting, your landlord might be able to raise your rent annually or just keep pace with inflation.

With a mortgage, your monthly payments won't rise with inflation, and we love that.

But that is only half of the story.

Let's talk about the other side of equity.

You don't get all your money back when you sell your house, aka you do throw some money away when you buy a house, too.

There are closing costs when you buy and when you sell, which can run 6% to 10% of the home's value.