retirement and not having a home

ok here is my situation 28 male not married. I own a home I may not be able to keep. 50% chance I have to short sale it. I wont know this until sometime in the spring. If I do it will be a releif because this home has costed me more pain the pleasure.

Anyway my question is if I rent for a while and don't own a home again can I still have a decent retirement? I still plan to use my roth ira, 401k and max them out. I know people use their paid for home as a portion of retirement. The sell it and relocate and buy something cheaper.

I want to buy a home again but also don't want to spend the rest of my life renting. I met with financial advisors and they showed me charts if I contibute X amount of dollars into fund A for X amount of years and the fund averages 12% I can wind up wealthy by 60.

Would I be better of renting and buying something when I have a nice nest egg in my retirement accounts? I am also just afraid rents will be so high with inflation that owning may be the better option. For example by grandma has had her home since 79 back then she rented out a 2 bedroom for 400 per month and now she gets 1200 for the same apartment.

The only advatage I like about owning is the tax right off. Other than that in my opnion it stinks. Next time around I think i want to go for a condo/townhome so there is no maintenace.


I just really need advice on this.

Thanks

dont worry about taxes..be street smart for you having a new job and new home..

Get a house as soon as you can. DO NOT wait for that magical wealth in retirement. For one thing, 12% is difficult, if not impossible, to sustain every year. For example, last year was a negative (loss) for practically everyone! -- I lost 30%, which means to break even, the market would have to increase by 50% this year -- to get an additional 12%, it would have to skyrocket! Neither of which are likely to happen this year.

Eight percent is usually the Holy Grail. These days, maybe we should all figure our portfolios at six percent, to be on the optimistic side of safe.

Your financial adviser should be shot, for even suggesting that 12% a year is a likely scenario!

Here, use this -- http://www.ataccorp.com/calculators/calc-savings.html

Put in your "X"s, and calculate it at 6% and 8% per year, and see if you like those numbers. 12%!!! your adviser should be shot after being keelhauled!

Hey Puck, you are absolutely right on the money about the advisor and I second the motion. Holy Mary, you need to find all of them advisors and ship them over to the Bahamas or Arubas. Where did he go to school of finance??? - well...