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Renting vs. Buying Real Estate: See the Cost Difference in These 5 North Carolina Cities
By Laura Beck,
11 hours ago
Kruck20 / Getty Images/iStockphoto
The decision to rent or buy a home is one that many Americans will face at some point in their lives. But how much will it really cost you? Before you decide what’s best for your situation, you’ll need to take a hard look at your wallet.
When you rent, you don’t have to pay for fixing up the place — the owner does that. Renting also lets you move more easily if your job or life changes. But renting has its downsides, too. Most landlords tend to raise the rent every year. Renting also doesn’t help you grow your money — you’re just paying to use a space without owning anything.
On the other hand, buying a home is often considered a good investment . Every time you pay your mortgage, you own more of the house, which also tends to get more valuable over time. And you can take advantage of that, by opening a home equity line of credit, for example. But buying a home isn’t always easy. You’re going to need a lot of money upfront for a down payment and other closing costs. Also, remember you’ll need to pay property taxes every year.
GOBankingRates recently conducted a study looking at the data on average home values, cost of living and other factors to determine the cost of renting versus buying in five North Carolina cities.
The data suggests that, by and large, it’s a little more expensive to own your home than to rent it in Virginia. If your dream is to buy a home in the Tarheel State, then you should be prepared to spend more each month. This is most pronounced in Raleigh, where the cost of owning is around 125% higher than renting. But, surprisingly, in Winston-Salem, the cost difference is negligible — in fact, homeowners pay a few bucks less than renters each month .
Methodology: For this study, GOBankingRates found the average cost of living for homeowners and renters in the USA’s largest 100 cities by population. First GOBankingRates found the top 100 cities by population as sourced from the US Census American Community Survey. For each city, a number of factors were found including; total population, total households, household median income all sourced from the US Census American Community Survey. The cost of living indexes were sourced from Sperlings BestPlaces and by using the national average expenditure costs for all residents, as sourced from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Consumer Expenditure Survey for all residents. The single-family home value was sourced from Zillow Home Value Index and by assuming a 10% down payment and using the national average 30-year fixed mortgage rate as sourced from the Federal Reserve Economic Data, the average mortgage rate can be calculated. The average rental cost was sourced from Zillow Observed Rental Index for each city. The average rent cost and average mortgage cost can be used with the average expenditure cost to calculate the total cost of living for renters and homeowners. The cities were ranked to show the cheapest to most expensive cities and then sorted by total population to show the cost of living for homeowners and renters in the top 100 cities by population. All data was collected on and is up to date as of July 15, 2024.
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