I will take the opposite approach as most, I rent by choice. I have been down the homeowner route twice before and the second one was a new home built just for us. I know I am throwing all that money away, have no equity etc. I choose to rent a town house simply because it allows me to live in an area I would probably not be able to afford owning. I never have to do yard work, shovel snow, paint, fix broken appliances (except washer and dryer) and the only utility I have is electric and its a killer low rate for an all electric home. We recently had an issue with a dishwasher flooding the floor. No fault of ours and had we owned the place would have been out thousands to repair the damage. The landlord is a friend from business and had it all fixed in under a week and apologized for the trouble (he got a few nice cigars too
). The reason I am rambling like this is simply to point out all the added cost of owning your own home. The HUGE mistake I made in both previous ownerships was I believed the bank as to what I could afford. On paper they were right, it all added up. But in reality there was little wiggle room for when the home needed a furnace, a hot water tank, the car blew a transmission and so forth. For the better part of 20 years I was living to support my house.
So my advise is do not assume their numbers are correct even if the bottom line shows extra money each month. A friend took the number his bank gave him last year and took 40% off the monthly figure that they approved him for. Waited until they found a home in that range and bought it. A few months back he said that they were struggling even though both him and his wife got raises and they haven't changed their lifestyles. He would not have made it if he bought in their range.
Chas