Purchasing a home is now cheaper than renting in most U.S. cities, thanks to drops in home prices, rock-bottom interest rates and increased demand for rental properties, CNN reported.

Buying made more economic sense than renting in 74 percent of the country's 50 largest cities in July, according to data from Trulia.com, with renting winning out in only 12 percent of cities, including New York. In the remaining 14 percent of cities, the costs of buying and renting were similar.

"It's a personal decision, of course. But if you have a steady job and you are planning to stay for seven years or more and have enough cash to put 20 percent down and enough left over for seven or eight months of expenses, you're better off buying in most places," said Daisy Kong, a spokesperson for Trulia.com.

At one end, Las Vegas was most obviously a buyer's market in July, with prices having plunged 59 percent from their 2006 peak. The median price of a two-bedroom property was $60,000.

New York remains quite clearly a renter's market despite the average asking rent hitting $2,980 per month, the highest of all the U.S. markets. To buy a two-bedroom home in New York costs an average of $1.3 million. [CNN]