Rent vs. Buy Calculator

How this calculator works

Renting and buying spend money in different shapes. Renting is simple: rent times months. Buying front-loads cash into a down payment and closing costs, then spreads the rest across a mortgage payment, property taxes, insurance, and maintenance — money that partly builds equity and partly just keeps the home running.

This calculator adds up the total cash spent on each path over the number of years you tell it you'd likely stay, then compares them side by side. It does not model investment returns on the money you'd save by renting, or home price appreciation — those are real factors, but they rely on guesses about the future that this calculator would rather leave to you than quietly bake in.

Why the time horizon matters more than any other input

Buying has large upfront costs (closing costs, moving, a down payment that could have earned interest elsewhere) that get "paid off" only by staying long enough. Leave after two years and renting often wins outright; stay for ten and buying usually pulls ahead, because the upfront costs are now spread thin and each payment builds equity instead of disappearing as rent. If you're not sure how long you'd stay, run the calculator at 3, 7, and 10 years and see where the answer flips.

What this number doesn't capture

• Flexibility — renting is easier to walk away from if a job or life change comes up.
• Forced savings — a mortgage payment builds equity whether or not you'd have actually invested the difference.
• Market risk — home values can fall as well as rise; this calculator doesn't assume either.

Use this as a cash-cost comparison, then weigh the parts that aren't measured in dollars for yourself.