I moved to Washington, D.C., in 2010, and I was perfectly happy as a renter. Neither of my apartments were luxurious. But in an expensive city with limited housing, I paid below market rate for my first place (my roommate and I had our own bedrooms, thanks to a makeshift wall). Later, when I wanted to live alone, I landed an underpriced studio in a rent-controlled building. But as more friends purchased shiny condos or casually speculated about future plans to buy, I wondered whether buying was something I should consider.
The nagging feeling that buying is something you should do is one big reason that millennials choose to buy, said Bill Nelson, a certified financial planner and founder of Pacesetter Planning near Boston. We've also been told that buying is an investment, and renting is "just throwing money away."
