I live the rental only life and only when needed. That being said when I looked at buying a car, it would be cheaper if bought second hand as it basically doesn't depreciate unless you drive commercially. The key is getting something that is already old and with a lot of mileage. Adding 10% more mileage to a car with 100k+ miles and adding 3 or 4 years to a 15 year old car doesn't really depreciate, it's all the same value. So if you ride the wave of old second hand cars you can switch every few years and you can even sell them for higher than you got them in years where the second hand market moves up.