I stumbled upon that calculator after writing one of my own one afternoon; it's cool!
Another key factor: house price appreciation and your ROI of capital. If house prices (adj. for inflation) don't rise much (as last 100 yrs or even 40 have shown) and you can make several percentage points above inflation on investing what you would have put into a down-payment, it doesn't matter how long you live in the home.
It's all in what kinda SWAGs you make. The default values in the NYtimes calculator are 1100/mo equiv. for $172k, but based on price to rent ratios here in Austin (near 20? http://www.deptofnumbers.com/affordability/texas/austin/) that home price would be near $250k
Another key factor: house price appreciation and your ROI of capital. If house prices (adj. for inflation) don't rise much (as last 100 yrs or even 40 have shown) and you can make several percentage points above inflation on investing what you would have put into a down-payment, it doesn't matter how long you live in the home.
It's all in what kinda SWAGs you make. The default values in the NYtimes calculator are 1100/mo equiv. for $172k, but based on price to rent ratios here in Austin (near 20? http://www.deptofnumbers.com/affordability/texas/austin/) that home price would be near $250k