The New York Times has a really cool new tool to help you decide whether to buy or to rent a home. Of course, the standard personal finance advice is that you should buy if you can but, with real estate markets softening of late, many renters are coming out of the woodwork to brag about not buying at the top of the market.

Here's how the screen works: You plug in the price of the property, the monthly rent you would have to pay, the down payment, the interest rate, and the property taxes. Then, you can tell it how much you expect real estate to appreciate on average each year and how much you expect rental rates to increase. Of course, this is not an exact science, but even being in the neighborhood will give you some idea. Then, it tells you how many years you would have to stay in the home for buying to be a better deal than renting. Pretty cool, huh?

In the article accompanying the tool, the New York Times proclaims "A Word of Advice During a Housing Slump: Rent." This could be seen as a contrarian indicator, or a sign of a bottom in real estate. Oftentimes, mainstream media outlets seem to announce that a downturn is in progress right at the bottom of the market. For instance, in 1979, Business Week ran a cover story entitled The Death of Equities, warning investors to stay away from stocks forever. Of course, that was right before the beginning of a two decade-long bull market.

So rather than rely on the New York Times advice, I would simply use the calculator to get an idea -- and if you're going to be staying put for awhile, buying is probably the best choice. Whatever you decide to do, I certainly wouldn't not buy a home because pundits say prices haven't fallen enough yet.