Why you might be better off renting a home | Home & Garden

My sources at LowCards.com defied the conventional wisdom of buying a home in this miserable economy to offer four reasons why you might consider renting instead:

* HOUSING PRICES ARE STUCK OR FALLING. On the front end, that sounds like a good thing:  a buyer's market. But a house is an investment. It's no good to buy low if the values are going lower. "There are many reasons to think that housing prices may remain at the levels they are currently at or even drop further, so it doesn't sound very attractive to own a home for investment purposes at the current time," said LowCards.com's John Oldshue.

* RENTING ALLOWS FOR FINANCIAL FLEXIBILITY. "If you buy a $500,000 home and have a $3,500 mortgage payment each month but decide you want to work less or you receive a pay cut, what options are there other than to incur tons of expenses to sell your house?" said Oldshue. "When you rent, you can easily move into a larger or smaller apartment and adjust your monthly payments accordingly."

* HOUSES CAN MORPH INTO MONEY PITS. Heavy down payments with little market return, property taxes, maintenance -- enough said.

* VOLATILE JOB MARKET MEANS YOU'RE MORE LIKELY TO MOVE. It's a lot easier to break a lease and pay a little penalty to move on to a better job than to put a house with a ball-and-chain mortgage on an anemic seller's market.