Rent vs Buy Calculator
Compare the true cost of buying vs renting over your time horizon, including taxes, appreciation, and opportunity cost.
How to decide between renting and buying
Renting versus buying is not a single right answer — it is a break-even question. Buying carries large up-front costs, mainly the down payment and closing costs, that you only recover over time by building equity and through home appreciation. Renting keeps you flexible and lets you invest the cash you did not sink into a property. The decisive figure is your break-even horizon: the number of years after which the total cost of buying drops below the total cost of renting. Stay longer than that and buying wins; leave sooner and renting usually comes out ahead.
A fair comparison has to count the costs buyers often forget. Beyond the mortgage, this calculator includes property taxes, insurance and maintenance, closing costs to buy, and the agent fees and costs to sell later. It also accounts for opportunity cost — the return the renter could earn by investing the money a buyer ties up in a down payment and closing costs. On the buying side, it credits home appreciation and the equity you build, which is what lets buying overtake renting over a long enough horizon. The result is a year-by-year net-cost comparison with the break-even year highlighted.
A quick sense-check is the price-to-rent ratio: home price divided by one year’s rent for a comparable place. Low ratios tend to favor buying and high ratios favor renting, though it is only a starting signal — your time horizon, mortgage rate, and local appreciation matter more. Enter your own numbers above to see where buying and renting cross for your situation. The output is a planning estimate; it does not capture every tax rule or future market move.