Buying vs. Renting Near VCU/MCV

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Originally written May 2010 · updated June 2026. The market figures below are a 2010 snapshot — rates and prices today are a different animal (see the market page for the current picture). The structural argument about VCU/MCV demand is what has held up.

I would like to offer the following debate to the parents of VCU students and their Medical School counterparts who are coming to Richmond this summer (or who have already arrived) and who need to decide whether to buy or rent a home near the VCU or MCV Campus.

You should at least seriously consider buying a house or condo near the VCU campus.

Now I understand that my position on this is not without bias. I am a Realtor who sells a lot of property in and around both the VCU Campus and the MCV/VCU Health Systems Campus. It benefits me when you buy. It does not really benefit me when you rent. I am now done disclaiming my conflict of interest.

That being said, it does not mean that I am wrong.

I am not going to make the rent-vs-buy calculator argument, because we can all tweak the numbers until they show what we want them to. Depending on inflation and appreciation and tax effects, I can get one of those things to spew out some amazing numbers. Those are interesting tools and they have their place. This is not a debate for the rent vs. buy calculator.

My argument is more macro in nature. Here was the backdrop when I first wrote this, in 2010:

• Prices were down 20–30% depending on your market and asset type
• Interest rates were being held down (somewhat artificially) by the Fed and were still hovering at or below 5%
• College tuition and room and board kept going up despite the rest of the economic world moving the other direction

At the time, renting ran roughly $1.30 per SF per month (about $1,200–1,400/mo for the typical 2-bedroom near the VCU campus) and buying at about $165–190 per square foot yielded a similar monthly cash payment at the end of the day. Which one gave you some upside? Pretty obvious — buying carried the promise of upside.

The counter-argument back then was simply that people weren’t sure the price declines were behind us. The condo inventory told the story:

• On January 1, 2009 there were over 400 condos for sale in Richmond, VA
• On January 1, 2010 there were fewer than 200
• By 2012–13 there were roughly 100, with no new “for sale” projects in the pipeline to skew the numbers

Life — at least financial life — is about managing, pricing and understanding risk. Betting large sums on risky endeavors with no upside is not smart. Betting medium sums with a low cost-of-capital, in a market that has balanced itself with no competition coming online, sounded like a pretty decent bet to me.

The 2026 update. Those specific conditions — sub-5% rates, post-crash pricing, shrinking inventory — were a moment in time, and they don’t describe today. Rates and prices now are a different conversation, and you should run current numbers with a real rate quote before you do anything. But the part of the argument that was never about the moment still stands: VCU and the MCV/VCU Health System are not going anywhere. That makes housing demand near those campuses about as durable as Richmond real estate gets. If you want to see what’s actually for sale in the VCU/Broad corridor right now, Eagle Mill and Iron House Place are the catalog’s anchors there.

Don’t let the national media scare you off. While extremism and negativity sell, I have yet to see a report on the college-driven housing market on 60 Minutes. As a matter of fact, the student housing market is one of the healthiest housing sectors out there, and owning a home that is underpinned by a rental option to students is a way to remove a great deal of risk from the equation.

Defining the data correctly is 99% of the battle — and that is what your agent is for.

Rick