Q. I live in Miami but expect to leave the area in two or three years. Should I buy or rent a home? I don’t know how much of my mortgage payment will be going to the principal and how much to the interest. If mostly will be going the interest, then I might as well rent and not worry about insurance and taxes.

A.Renting probably makes the most sense.

Very little of your mortgage payments in the first few years go toward principal. Just hypothetically, if you got a $250,000 mortgage at 6% your first payment would be divided thusly: $248 toward principal, $1,250 toward interest.

After two years, you would have paid $29,643 in interest and still owe almost $247,000 in principal. The ratio would shift in late 2024. At that time you would start paying off principal in big chunks. But after only two years, your paid equity would just over $3,000.

Also, the housing market in Miami is a little soft after a huge run-up in prices over the past five years. One study we’ve seen by Local Market Monitor says Miami is the second-most overvalued market in the nation. It would not be surprising if prices fell slightly over the next couple of years, giving back 10% or 15% of that extraordinary appreciation. You certainly can’t count on being able to buy today and sell at a profit in just two or three years.