In confusing market, is it time to rent or buy?

SALT LAKE CITY — Kent Cerise raised his daughters in a nice Tudor-style house he rented here while he dreamed of the day he could afford to make a hefty down payment and buy his own home. He's signing the paperwork and taking possession July 1.

Across the valley in West Jordan, Candy McNaught happily shares half a duplex with her sister. They are renters. She's been a homeowner and has no urge to deal with the repairs and costs that entails. When the recession is finally clearly in the rearview mirror, she'll still be renting — and delighted to do so, she says.

There are, it appears, different perspectives on whether it's better to rent or buy — and no simple, one-size-fits-all answer, experts agree.

Here's what is uncontested, though, in 2011's housing market: With low interest rates and housing prices that have plunged, not to mention tons of inventory, it's a buyer's market for those who want to own — if they can meet newly stringent financing requirements. Otherwise, would-be homeowners need to bring cash or forget it. The big question appears to be whether housing values have stopped their free-fall yet.

And for those who, like McNaught, would rather rent, it's also a bit of a renter's market, though rental prices are rising even as the cost of home ownership seems to be sinking.

Yes, the housing market is depressed. But many of those contemplating new abodes, whether planning to rent or buy, seem strangely buoyant.

"What we are seeing is a decline in home ownership that you would expect when across the country there are several million and in Utah about 12,000 loans in foreclosure," says James Wood, director of the Bureau of Economic and Business Research at the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah.

"That doesn't mean they are all vacant; there's a filing process. But what you have is people who have lost their home. They double up with friends or relatives or they rent. The rental market appears to be tightening up, as the vacancy rates come down a bit."

That's not news to Justin and Cara McIntyre, who find themselves in the funny position of being both renters and landlords. The question of "home" is one they've considered hard.

They are newlyweds, eight months in, and he's getting ready to go to graduate school. She owned a home when they married, playing landlord to her roommates. For the McIntyres, it has made sense to rent part of a large old home in Salt Lake City while letting her friends continue to rent her house.