Rent versus buy calculator
Compare the cost of buying a home with renting a similar one over the years you choose. See home equity, owner costs, rent, the investment growth a renter keeps and the year buying starts to cost less, all from your own assumptions.
1 to 50 years, mortgage terms of 1 to 40 years at 0 to 30 percent, home value and rent changes from -50 to 50 percent a year, tax, maintenance and selling cost rates from 0 to 20 percent, investment returns from 0 to 50 percent a year compounded monthly and amounts up to 1000000000000 at 0 to 3 decimal places, 100000000000 at 4, 10000000000 at 5 and 1000000000 at 6, with every yearly value and total within 1000000000000000 minor currency units (10000000000000 at 2 decimal places). Calculated locally in your browser. Downloads are a JSON report and a CSV with one row per year. This calculator reads the form fields below; there is no text box. Up to 1,000,000 characters. Review the settings before running.
Your result
How to use Rent versus buy calculator
- Enter the number of years, the home price, the down payment and buying costs.
- Enter the mortgage rate and term, the yearly home value change and the owner costs.
- Enter the selling costs, the monthly rent, the yearly rent change and the return on invested savings.
- Review the net cost of each option and the break-even year, then download the JSON report or the yearly CSV.
Useful next steps
Method
The mortgage is a level monthly payment, the same formula as the spreadsheet PMT function (Microsoft Support, PMT function, checked 16 October 2026), with interest rounded to the cent each month. For each year the net cost of buying adds the down payment, buying costs, mortgage payments, property tax, maintenance and other owner costs, then subtracts what selling at the end of that year would return after selling costs and the mortgage balance, and adds the growth the down payment and buying costs would have earned if invested, with the yearly return divided by 12 and compounded monthly. The net cost of renting is the rent paid.
Break-even year
Buying advantage is the net cost of renting minus the net cost of buying. The first break-even year is the first year it is zero or more, and the break-even year is the first year from which it stays zero or more until the end of the comparison.
Assumptions and limits
Home value, rent and other owner costs change once a year, and property tax and maintenance use the home value at the start of each year. The investment return compounds monthly, so 5 percent a year grows a balance by about 5.12 percent in a year. Only the down payment and buying costs are treated as invested by a renter; monthly cost differences are not. Income tax effects such as mortgage interest deductions and tax on gains are not included, and the property tax rate is your own. This is a calculation from your own assumptions, not advice about whether to buy.