Can anyone help me "run the numbers" of buying a $650k home ($250k down with a $400k mortgage) vs renting an apartment $2.2k monthly? Housing payments are coming out of taxable liquid investments, rather than income, so the major considerations are the loss of market investment potential ($200k for the down-payment all at once, vs $2.2k monthly over some time), and building equity in the home with the hope of a longer term upside. There are a lot of nuanced details to being a homeowner vs a tenant, but I'm just currently stuck on the numbers part.

In general - unless housing rates are coming down, highly unlikely in a frum neighborhood - buying a house is the way to go.

"($200k for the down-payment all at once, vs $2.2k monthly over some time)" -You will probably be spending much more than 2.2k a month on interest taxes & insurance, so its not like you will have 2.2k a month to invest all of the sudden?

Would it make sense to look at renting as a 650k interest only loan and compare interest rates?

@mysterious-tomato-10057 will probably suggest monte carlo Is your question about which one is the better investment in the long run? Or is it about cash flows over the next 30 years? Or something else?

Yes I used to do this manually for people but since we now pay for software to automate this process and provide detailed insight, I think that's a much better idea. Timing is an important factor that blindly calculating present value is missing.