To buy or to rent ?According to a report in local daily – in almost90% of the country, the average rent is higher thanthe cost of buying a median-priced home. Theexceptions are in the handful of highest-pricedhousing markets in the country like-San Francisco,New York and Arlington.

Consistent job growth has made it possible formore people to rent their own apartments. Still,rising home prices are preventing many frombuying.

Renting over Purchase

The national vacancy rate for apartments decreased from 8 percent to 4.1 percent from 2009 to2013, At the same time, the average price of an existing U.S. House has risen about 14 percent,according to commercial real estate news provided by Reis Inc. to a newspaper report. People arediscouraged to invest in Houses as a effect of housing market disaster of 2007. A burden offoreclosures forced many people to move out of their homes and into apartment leases. On the otherside, construction of apartments was uphold until the last few years because many builders couldn'tget loans during the credit crisis.In certain places, this led to lease and a rise in rents. This was seenas opportunity for the landlords to increase rents in many markets.

The Calculation

Before your monthly cost comparison, there is a lot of math's required to call a real estate agent. Forpurchasing a house you need to pay at least 20 percent down payment. For many first-time buyers,pooling this amount can be difficult. The rent-versus-ownership analysis also states that you need tospend 0.35 percent of the amount of your mortgage on insurance and another 1.04 percent onproperty taxes. Maintenance cost and cost of other utilities consumed in the house is extra to thetotal amount.If you think you can get a loan easily as the price of house is less than its not a validassumption especially if you're one of the 7 million former homeowners who lost their property to aforeclosure or short sale. Even if you're credit is solid, rising interest rates are lifting the incomelevel you'll need to cover your monthly mortgage payment.

Minimum fuel required

But those are just the averages. In the priciest markets, you'll need to show a lot more income onyour tax returns to get the nod from a mortgage company. In San Francisco, you'll need to earn$228,500 to buy a median-priced home. Other high-cost counties come with high minimums toqualify, including Marin County, Calif., ($178,000), San Mateo County, Calif. ($170,000),Arlington County, Va. ($158,500), Santa Clara County, Calif. ($149,500) and Hudson County, N.J.($142,500).

As the affordability gap between rising rents, housing price and income of the people widens. Morepressure is added on the U.S. economy, which relies primarily on consumer spending. Therefore ineither of the way consumer will have to bear the burden.