Renting vs. buying a home in Fresno

FRESNO, Calif.

Ashley Poudrier is hoping to soon be a first time home buyer. With her daughters by her side, she spent Friday looking for a new home. A new report shows Fresno is one of the best places in the country to buy rather than rent. Poudrier and her husband have just started looking -- but says she's not surprised about the news.

"I was thinking a couple of years back the houses were really expensive and there was no way we could do it. Looking at house prices now they're reasonable. Seems reasonable," said Poudrier.

Don Scordino is with Realty Concepts and is Ashley's realtor. He says this Northwest Fresno home would sell for roughly a $100 thousand once cleaned up. Scordino says it's smarter to buy this three bed-two bath house as opposed to renting it -- just by doing the math.

"You could get a loan on it with 3.5% down so $3,500 down and you'd have a mortgage payment of $750.00 for the next 30 years. If you were to rent in this neighborhood cleaned up it would go right around $1,000 a month," said Scordino.

But it's not only the realtors who are optimistic about the housing market. Loan Officer Paul Salazar agrees now is the time to buy. Even with the news of high foreclosure rates and denied bank loans -- he says today's market is not what it was like in 2004.

"People are going to buy homes. The people who had foreclosures. Those are the people who were affected by the economy or they should have never been able to afford that house because of a bad loan product. We're discussing the liar loans," said Salazar.

Both Scardino and Salazar say if you plan on living in the Valley -- buy, buy, buy. But if you're planning to move within the next few years it might be better to stay a renter.