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Sure.

Let's look at a home that I came across not far from where I live. It's an upscale townhouse with 2 bedrooms and 2 baths. It's listed for $499,000 right now.

Here are the monthly costs, assuming a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage with no money down (I'm doing this to make it a valid comparison, because a renter would not have to make a down payment):

Mortgage: $2,680
Property Taxes: $865
Association Fees: $375
Mortgage Insurance*: $150 (minimum)
TOTAL: $4,070

* This is a rough estimate based on a $400,000 loan balance and a 0.05% insurance rate; the mortgage insurance premium is based on the loan amount and will decline until it disappears once the loan-to-value ratio is below 80%.

I left out the utilities because these would be the same regardless of whether you are renting or buying the home. I also left out the property insurance because there would be a comparable cost for renter's insurance.

Now here's something interesting ...

An identical townhouse in the same development is listed for RENT by the same broker. The monthly rent that they're asking is $2,900.

Now why would there be such a big difference between the purchase price and the rental cost? There are a few reasons here, including (but not limited to) the following:

1. The renter doesn't have to pay the mortgage insurance here ($150).

2. The owner of the townhouse that is being offered for sale has built a premium of 6% into the purchase price to cover the broker's commission. In other words, the price of the property would probably be around $471,000 instead of $499,000 if there was no broker involved.

3. The owner of the townhouse that is being offered for rent doesn't have to cover a $2,680 monthly mortgage payment because he didn't purchase it for $499,000 (he probably purchased it for about $300,000 when it was built 15 years ago). Applying the same numbers to a $300,000 mortgage would yield a monthly mortgage payment of only $1,610 instead of $2,680.

4. There would be no mortgage insurance for the landlord to pay after 15 years because the balance on the mortgage is far less than the $450,000-$500,000 current value of the home.

So when you add these up, what you find is that the owner of the townhouse that is listed for rent has to recover $1,240 to cover the property taxes and association fees, which means he can charge $2,850 and just break even for a mortgage payment of $1,610. In this case the mortgage is probably much less than $1,610 because: (A) he may have financed a lot less than the full $300,000 purchase price I've assumed from 15 years ago, and/or (B) he may have refinanced the mortgage in the last 15 years and extended the mortgage for another 30 years.

So in this particular case ... and I must stress that this only applies to my own personal situation which may be different from anyone else's ... if I was absolutely certain that I HAD to live in this neighborhood, I would rent the latter home for $2,900 per month. I would then take the "extra" $1,170 per month (the difference between the $2,900 rental cost and the $4,070 purchase cost) and put it aside in a few low- to moderate-risk investments.