Should you rent or should you buy?  If not the most frequesntly asked question in real estate, then very close.  

How do you answer that?  With 9 million+- rent vs buy calculators (and here's a good one if you want to use it), that really can't answer the question, what is the answer?  The calculators are great for number crunching, as long as you plug in accurate assumptions, but they are not so great for "need crunching".  And that's really what rent vs buy comes down to.

Of course nobody wants to buy into a crashing market, but let's say you're not looking in an area that is expected to continue to nosedive.  Here is Boston, we've seen prices fall about 15-20% from their peak in 2005.  That's about 3-4% per year.  Not exactly delightful, but not exactly catastophic either.  At least it shouldn't be if you buy right.

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