You'll get a million opinions on it, and there really isn't a clear answer. I largely think it's a decision you should make based on your own life preferences rather than trying to figure out what the best decision is from a purely financial perspective. Do you like being able to customize your place to your preferences? Are you capable of making minor repairs and doing minor maintenance? Are you planning on staying in the same place for a long time? Are you comfortable saving up for the more major expenses? If so, ownership is probably the way to go. Would you rather not have to deal with repairs and maintenance? Are you OK with just living with a fairly generic space that you don't customize? Do you like the idea of being able to pick up and move easily? If so, renting is probably better.

If you want to try and figure out the best financial decision, you can play around with an online calculator to help you see where the differences are. For me, what it really comes down to is that your mortgage is a fixed amount, while rent will increase over time. So if you plan to stay in your place for 50 years, there's almost no question that buying will be the best option. But you're right that big maintenance items suck, and if you get hit with a bunch of them right after you buy, you might be behind where you'd be if you'd rented in the short term.

Side note:
I'm kind of ignoring the "equity" argument even though it's a valid one. I personally bought my place in 2009 when the government was giving out free money to buy a house, and I live in Denver where the housing market has been booming ever since. Nearly half of my net worth is due to my house, so I've been really fortunate. The problem is that another housing market collapse could eliminate all of it, and the situation in Denver this past decade is far from typical. Again, if you plan to stay in your place for years, the equity will absolutely be a benefit, but it doesn't work for everyone, and the benefit is pretty small if you're not in it for the long haul.
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I won’t tell you one way or the other but one thing I know for sure is if you rent, you’ll still be paying all the same maintenance costs, taxes, whatever. It will just be amortized over the whole year. You won’t write a separate check but you’re still paying for it.

FWIW if you have a loan on an amortization table (as opposed to straight line) you will not accumulate much equity early on. If you really are worried about the numbers make sure you read up on how amortization tables work.
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I've mentioned something about this in the past, and while it seems silly I'm serious. The best financial advice that I would give a person just out of college would be to find a city that's growing and move there to start your career and buy a house as soon as possible. Buying a house in a growing market is like adding another wage earner in terms of increasing your net worth. You're paying a lot more for your home, which is rough, but you're leveraging the bankers' money in a way that gives you more wealth in the long run.
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I'm 27. So yeah I'm very long term.
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Amnorix is partially right.

You can reinvest your ETF dividends easily if you go through Fidelity and I assume even Schwab or others.

I use Fidelity. I own a number of ETFs. I have dividends and capital gains automatically reinvested in them. So if you want to go the ETF route don't let that dissuade you as Amnorix is wrong about that.
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I love Visa. If I were put money into one stock and let it grow for 5-10 years, Visa is one of my top picks.

I’d also consider adding Target. They’ve ascended since 1996 and they pay a 2.36% dividend yield.
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You could die at any time in an accident. you should play it safe and keep all your money in cash.
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Put everything in a trust.
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So I use Fidelity and they sold me their target managed fund for my Roth IRA.

My question is, why would I do that and not just get an S&P low cost Index Fund, specifically the Fidelity version FXAIX?

Here’s the comparison:

Fidelity managed target fund-average life of return to date is 7.70%. It’s got an expense ratio of 0.75%

Fidelity S&P FXAIX-average life of return to date is 13.22%. It’s expense ratio is 0.02%

It also seems like a large portion of the target fund is made up of the S&P anyway.

That seems like one hell of a huge difference. Any downside to this in your minds?
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The target fund is a mix of stocks, bonds and cash. The asset allocation is proportionate to what they deem is "right" for your current age. As you get closer to retirement the fund will become more and more conservative.

The SP500 fund is just that. It's 100% stocks. Most people fall in love with the return of the SP500 and lose site of proper asset allocation.

The downside is if you go 100% SP500 you are in nothing but stocks. So if the SPX goes down 20% you go down 20% because you have nothing else to cushion or otherwise stabilize your portfolio.

I will give you a hint: 90% of people with proper asset allocation will rarely outperform the SP500 unless you are very young and pretty much in all stocks.
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Yeah, there's nothing wrong with index funds over a target date fund, but you need to know a bit about what index funds you've got. Schwab actually has target date index funds, which are kind of the best of both worlds IMO, but you can do basically the same thing on your own with just a handful of index funds.

Google around about a "three fund lazy portfolio" to give you the gist.
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That’s what I thought, but here’s my thing. If the S&P crashes and goes down the tubes by 50% aren’t we all screwed no matter what? Your managed fund is going down with it.
Sure you’ve got some bonds and a few international assets, but A large portion of my target fund is in stocks.

December is a great case study. It was the worst performance in a decade. The S&P went from 2,924 to 2,4447 (16.25% drop). Hell my target fund dropped more! It went down 17%!

I guess that’s why I’m such a big fan of this possibility. We went though hell after 9/11, 2008 and as recently as last December and it always bounces back stronger every single time. In almost 100 years, the S&P has done nothing but go up.

Meanwhile my target fund barely moves.
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Portfolio diversification is a tried and true approach. If you're young and want to throw out widely-accepted recommendations and go all-in on stocks, go for it - you might get lucky. But no serious financial advisor would ever suggest that in the long-term.
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Yeah for sure. I’m not elaborating well enough.

What if you move your highest position to the S&P index fund and have a similar % as your target fund in the same (or similar) bonds and international assets?

That’s the general idea. Not sure if it will work, but it’s an interesting thought.
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Sure, that's exactly what the three-fund portfolio is all about. THe only difference is that you have to update the allocations every once in a while.

I've gotten super lazy and just do the Schwab target index fund for most stuff these days, but I used to do something like 70% S&P index, 15% International stock index, and 15% bond index (in my mid-30s). As you get older, it should shift a bit toward more bonds and fewer stocks.
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