Yeah, but Forbes is full of shit and you know it.

Nationally, buying is 38% cheaper than renting with a traditional 20% down, 30-year mortgage. Buying is an even better deal with a 15-year mortgage, but not as favorable with less money down.

Let's take my neighbors downstairs. They're teachers. They've got student loans. They live in a 2 bedroom condo with their 3-year-old son and their nine month old twin daughters. This is obviously an untenable situation so it's a good thing they were able to get their inlaws to loan them a 20% downpayment on their $350k condo in 2008.

But now it's 2015 and they need another bedroom. And while their condo will likely sell for $500k (they actually got an offer of $75k over ask - but they had to do some chicanery with cash payments and the like because the bank won't actually loan that much over appraisal), the 3-br replacement for their condo is $650-700k. Take out some closing costs and the like and even though they've got a foot on the property ladder, they have to ask their parents for more money for another down payment.

Forbes is basically saying "If you have six figures of liquidity, mortgages are easy to get" which is about the greatest "no shit sherlock" of a statement any financial journal has ever made.

I'm looking in my building. Same exact floorplan, except they have the shitty deck while I have the dope one. There's a 3BR down the hall going for the bargain price of $550k ('cuz it's rough - and it'll still go for wildly over ask). And if I can put $110k down, I'll only pay $300/mo more to live there than I do here!