Compare the long-run cost of buying a home against renting and investing the difference — enter your own numbers, no assumed rates.
The Home
Renting Instead
| Year | Home Value | Net Worth (Buy) | Net Worth (Rent & Invest) |
|---|
The classic "rent vs buy" debate usually gets reduced to comparing a mortgage payment against a rent payment, which misses most of the real cost of owning: property tax, insurance, maintenance, HOA fees, closing costs and selling costs when you eventually move. It also misses the opportunity cost of the money tied up in a down payment.
This calculator instead compares net worth under each path at a chosen horizon. Buying's net worth is the home's equity if sold that day; renting's net worth is a hypothetical investment account seeded with what you didn't spend on a down payment, topped up or drawn down each month by the actual gap between buying costs and rent.
Because the result is sensitive to appreciation, rent growth and investment return assumptions, it's worth running the comparison a few times with different reasonable rates rather than treating a single result as certain.
It compares your net worth under each path at your chosen horizon. Buying's net worth is the home's value minus what's still owed and minus selling costs, as if sold that day. Renting's net worth assumes you invest the down payment and closing costs instead, then invest or draw down the monthly difference between buying and renting costs at your given investment return.
No — it makes no country-specific tax assumptions. It only uses the property tax, insurance, maintenance and HOA figures you enter.
It's the first year in your comparison where buying's net worth catches up to and overtakes renting-and-investing's net worth, based on your entered appreciation, rent growth and investment return rates.
Use current published averages for your area as a starting point, then try a couple of alternate scenarios — the comparison is only as accurate as the rates you put in, and small changes to appreciation or investment return can shift the result meaningfully over long horizons.
