Rent vs Buy Calculator

Because the honest comparison is not rent versus mortgage, it is renting-and-investing versus buying. If you rent, the money that would have been a down payment stays liquid and can earn a return. Ignoring that opportunity cost is the single most common way rent-vs-buy comparisons are rigged in favour of buying.

It is the first year in which the net cost of buying drops to or below the net cost of renting, given your assumptions. Sell before that year and you would have been better off renting. It is not a prediction, it is a consequence of the numbers you typed, and it is extremely sensitive to the selling cost and the two growth rates.

Closing costs, mortgage insurance, homeowners insurance, HOA fees, and every tax effect, including the mortgage-interest deduction. It also invests only the down payment on the renting side, not the monthly cash-flow difference. Where owning costs far more per month than renting, that omission understates the case for renting.

Very. Appreciation compounds on the full home value, while your down payment compounds only on itself, so a percentage point of appreciation is worth several percentage points of investment return in the early years. Run it at 2%, 3%, and 5% before you trust any single answer, and note that long-run real house-price growth in most markets is closer to 1% than 5%.

Selling costs. At the 6% default, you lose 6% of the sale price the moment you transact, and in the first few years almost all of your mortgage payment is interest, so you have built very little equity to offset it. That is the arithmetic behind the common advice not to buy if you might move within five years.

Yes. A new build defers maintenance, it does not eliminate it. The 1% of value per year default is a long-run average across roofs, heating, windows, and appliances. Setting it to 0 for a five-year horizon is defensible; setting it to 0 for a twenty-year one is not.