To illustrate the complexities, we’ve created a hypothetical rent vs. buy scenario to track housing finances over a 30-year period. WHERE IT GOESLook at the slices of 30 years of housing expenditures, rent vs. own. A HISTORY LESSONLook at the past 30 years of historical returns for three key factors in this rent vs. buy calculation, using 10-year moving averages for rent (California Consumer Price Indexes); home values (federal California index) and stocks (Standard & Poor’s 500). Unfathomable, unaffordableCalifornia’s long-running and steep affordability crunch makes the rent vs. buy debate a moot argument for many people. The state’s flock of high- paying jobs pushes up housing costs well past what more typical paychecks can easily afford.