You’d probably need over $200k in your retirement account (depending on your housing costs and apy) for it to be more cost effective to leave it in there and even then you’re still pissing thousands of dollars away a year in rent instead of owning property. It’s almost certainly better to buy rather than rent in this housing market.
There’s the combination of not paying rent and then the two questions of “will housing as a speculative asset outpace my 401k” and “can you retire without owning a house and if not is it better to secure the house and figure out the daily expenses later”. I do consider these mostly theoretical questions
You’d probably need over $200k in your retirement account (depending on your housing costs and apy) for it to be more cost effective to leave it in there and even then you’re still pissing thousands of dollars away a year in rent instead of owning property. It’s almost certainly better to buy rather than rent in this housing market.
There’s the combination of not paying rent and then the two questions of “will housing as a speculative asset outpace my 401k” and “can you retire without owning a house and if not is it better to secure the house and figure out the daily expenses later”. I do consider these mostly theoretical questions