Rent vs. Buy Calculator
Somewhere buried in the comments a reader asked if there were an easy way to figure the comparative advantages of renting vs. buying. I can't vouch for it because I just Googled the term and am posting what came up (yes, I'm lazy this time of evening) but here's Yahoo's answer to that question. Continuing my theme of laziness, please try it and let me know if it works. Thanks.

Update: Okay, I'm not as tired as I thought I was, so I tossed some numbers into the calculator and looked at renting for $6,000 per month vs buying for $2.1 million assuming a 30 year mtg with a 15 year ownership or rental span. The result (you can see the other assumptions I plugged in at the link) is that, absent any appreciation over the years, you save (a lot of) money renting instead of buying

The kicker here is no appreciation. I'd have felt confident in years past tossing in a 5% per year figure and that would swing things in the buyer's favor, but now? Who knows?