Is now the time to Buy versus Rent?
Renting used to be cheaper than buying. But in many U.S. cities that’s no longer the case, as rents continue to climb and home prices stagnate.
Sacramento metro-area homes declined 7.9% year over year in February while monthly rents rose 0.4% over the same period – according to Zillow.

Zillow puts the Sacramento regions medium home price at $200,600 in February this year. The medium monthly rent at that time was $1,406.00 – slightly up from the year ago period.

Nationally Zillow said that rents rose 2% to a medium of $1,212.00 from Feb. 2011 to Feb. 2012 while the medium home values continue to fall – down 4.5% to $145,400.

“We have made it through the worst of the housing recession with a bottom on the horoizon… but the deep backlog of foreclosures, elevated negative equity, and high unemployment are still obstacles on the road to recovery” said Svenja Gudell, Zillow’s senior ecomomist.

While it appears that home prices may remain realatively stable or drop some more, it does appear that when compared to renting – homeownership becomes a very viable option for many potential home buyers especially with the historically low interest rates that are available.