Sophia Harris is a single woman in her late 20s. She is renting an apartment in the fashionable part of town for $1,500 a month. After much thought, she's seriously considering buying a condominium for $175,000. She intends to put 20 percent down and expects that closing costs will amount to another $5,000; a commercial bank has agreed to lend her money at the fixed rate of 6 percent on a 15-year mortgage. Sophia would have to pay an annual condominium owner's insurance premium of $560 and property taxes of $1,500 a year (she's now paying renter's insurance of $550 per year). In addition, she estimates that annual maintenance expenses will be about 0.5 percent of the price of the condo (which includes a $30 monthly fee to the property owners' association). Sophia's income puts her in the 25 percent tax bracket (she itemizes her deductions on her tax returns), and she earns an after-tax rate of return on her investments of around 4 percent.