With the real estate market doing well, you’ve been thinking about whether it makes sense for you to buy your own home. Well, given that rent payments are now just about on par with or sometimes even higher than mortgage payments, it just may make sense. Here are some other reasons to seriously consider buying your own home.

First, is that rental payment each month

Being the same or higher is reason enough, but those rental payments don’t benefit you, they benefit your landlord. When the payment is rent, the landlord uses it to improve the property and pay his or her mortgage.

Yes, a mortgage payment includes things like property taxes and homeowner’s insurance, but each payment you make on a mortgage earns you value in your home. And that homeowner’s insurance payment? It provides you a lot more coverage than renter’s insurance.

So no matter how you look at it home ownership gives you a lot more bang for your buck.

Stability

Owning a home also provides you with stability and the ability to make your home yours. You aren’t living at the whims of a landlord, hikes in rent or having to move and find another home.

This is especially important if you have children. Stability in where they live, go to school and grow up is important. It’s also important that you can make your home yours. You can take out walls, paint whatever color you want and change it up whenever you want. Your landlord wouldn’t let you do that.

Appreciation in value

Of course, that appreciation in value is important too. Not only in the difference in what you own on your mortgage versus what you bought it for, but also in how the value of your home goes up. Despite the fall in values when the bubble burst, over the decades it takes to pay off a mortgage home values do tend to increase. While not usually as quickly as before the bubble burst, but it goes up over time.

So go ahead and think hard about buying. It will be the best decision you could make.