Buy or Rent? Consider Career Cost
When it comes to a home, most people look at buy vs. rent decision in isolation. Mainstream finance magazines contribute to this thinking by presenting the numbers of buy vs. rent decision as if those direct costs are the only ones that matter. Some bloggers take this discussion forward (but barely) by including the opportunity cost of investing the down payment or other exclusive house-related costs in an S&P 500 index fund. This is still incomplete. Few people consider the bigger opportunity cost of home ownership while working in a corporate career.
Raman Venkatesh is the founder of Ten Factorial Rocks. Raman is a ‘Gen X’ corporate executive in his mid 40’s. In addition to having a Ph.D. in engineering, he has worked in almost all continents of the world. Ten Factorial Rocks (TFR) was created to chronicle his journey towards retirement while sharing his views on the absurdities and pitfalls along the way. The name was taken from the mathematical function 10! (ten factorial) which is equal to 10 x 9 x 8 x 7 x 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 = 3,628,800.
