text: Exactly - and it's nonsensical to pay an inflated cost for a home in a bubble, subsequent inflated interest costs, plus all the tax, insurance and utilities.
  
  We sold high before 2010 and have been renting a home in a smaller city for about 16K annually with a 1% income. Our investments have grown more than ever possible without paying a mortgage. We've bought cars, computers and trips for cash, and we are completely debt free. Our friends have renegotiated mortgages and pay well over double what we do monthly plus they have consumer debt because they can't swing it all. One couple is divorcing - after 25 years - they still don't "own" their home as they had to put on second mortgages and lines of credit etc. They can't even sell to settle their divorce because the mortgage term isn't finished, prices are slumping, it's a buyers market and really, they do not have anything to show after years of paying all that interest to the bank, all that tax to the city.....