Is it cheaper to rent or buy housing? In Clark County, it's about equal, report finds
May 9-For a decade, Clark County has bucked the real-estate adage that it's cheaper to rent than to buy, according to data from British newsweekly The Economist.
Now, the costs of renting and buying are deadlocked, with renting only slightly cheaper for Clark County residents, according to the report. This leaves a lot of Clark County residents paying high rents and unable to save for a down payment.
"It will definitely cycle, but housing across the board is going to get a lot more expensive in Clark County - for renters or buyers," said Mike Lamb, a real estate broker at Windermere Northwest Living.
Swinging pendulum
The data sources tapped by The Economist don't tell the whole story of Clark County's housing market over the years, Lamb said. The report omits factors such as taxes, deductions and the long-term benefits of homeownership.
Plus, the data used to compare rent and mortgages is not apples to apples, said Mike Wilkerson of the Portland-based research firm ECOnorthwest. He said conditions vary in different parts of Clark County, so data that captures the entire county lacks important nuance. For example, city dwellers are more likely to rent, he said.
"The share of homeownership in the city of Vancouver is much lower than it is in the rest of the county," Wilkerson said.
Even so, the trends underscored in the data match what Clark County has experienced since 2009, Lamb and Wilkerson said.
From 2009 to 2011, house rental prices were lower than the median monthly mortgage payment in Clark County - but not by much. Rent was about $1,050 in 2009, with homeowners paying just over $1,100 for their mortgages, according to The Economist.
The trend continued until 2012 when the pendulum swung in favor of homebuyers.
Buying was cheaper than renting, with the median mortgage at $947 and rent prices around $1,160. This was a result of the 2008 housing crash, Lamb said. Foreclosures and distressed sales drove home prices down while interest rates stayed relatively low for buyers.
"When we went through the housing downturn, we saw prices go down," Lamb said. "They were really, really low and so there were bargains."
The trend continued for the next decade. From 2012 to 2016, the median monthly mortgage in Clark County was just shy of $1,000, according to the data.
Over the next few years, mortgages began to creep up for Clark County residents. But so did rental prices. By 2020, median monthly rent for a house was $2,000 while mortgages hovered near $1,300.
"I've never seen rates like that in my whole career," Lamb said. "What happens during COVID? You've got low, low, low interest rates and you've got strong demand with limited inventory. Prices begin to go up."
In early 2022, homebuyers could lock in an interest rate of about 3 percent, but by late 2023, the market was entirely different as rates climbed to over 5 percent, according to data from the Internal Revenue Service.
Lamb said interest rates have continued to trend upward.
"It has a lot of impact. ... And it also priced a lot of people out of being able to get into the market," Lamb said. "Only in the last 10 years have we seen the median sale price being above $300,000."
New trends
Wilkerson said the market began stabilizing in 2023. In 2025, median rent for a home was $2,678, and a monthly mortgage payment was $2,842.
But renters hoping to own have had a more difficult time the past few years.
With rent so high and rising each year, renters are stuck because they have little money left to save for a down payment even if they could afford the monthly mortgage, Wilkerson and Lamb said.
"With rents as high as they are relative to incomes ... most households can't save or the period to save is 10-plus years," Wilkerson said.
This will leave more people stuck in the rental market, which in turn drives demand that may spike rents, Lamb said.
"In the old days, the market could respond. But now this problem will not fix itself," Lamb said. "Everyone acknowledges that we have a problem. Supply problems are going to keep raising housing costs."
This story was made possible by Community Funded Journalism, a project from The Columbian and the Local Media Foundation. Top donors include the Ed and Dollie Lynch Fund, Patricia, David and Jacob Nierenberg, Connie and Lee Kearney, Steve and Jan Oliva, The Cowlitz Tribal Foundation and the Mason E. Nolan Charitable Fund. The Columbian controls all content. For more information, visit columbian.com/cfj.
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