With all that in mind, you did make an interesting and compelling case for considering renting.

I agree, and as someone who's paying out the nose for renting, it makes me feel a lot better. At a time when the low interest rates are causing sellers to demand ridiculous sums of money for even the slummiest of homes, buying certainly doesn't make sense for me right now.

However, I think one minor flaw in Doug's otherwise brilliant case is that with a mortgage, you more or less know what your monthly payment will be for the duration of the payoff period. In this case, it ends up costing $336,000 or so after the 20 years. But with rentals, you're subject to a rent increase nearly every year, especially if you're in a "hot" area where everyone wants to live. I don't know if those rent increases are typically high enough to erase the 8% yield of the hypothetical investment or not, but it certainly eats into it enough to make one seriously consider buying.... Doesn't it? (Says the guy who knows nothing about math and even less about economics.)