Rent vs. Buy Calculator

Renting or buying — which actually wins?

Rent vs. Buy Calculator runs the full math on both sides of the biggest housing decision most people make: it computes buying's net cost as mortgage interest paid (via correct amortization) plus property tax and insurance/maintenance, minus home appreciation gained, and computes renting's net cost as cumulative rent paid (with compounding annual increases) minus the investment growth you'd earn by putting the down payment into the market instead. The clear final verdict — "renting is cheaper by $X" or "buying is cheaper by $X" — is broken down line by line so you can see exactly where the advantage comes from.

• →Correct monthly mortgage amortization, capped properly if the comparison horizon outlasts the loan term
• →Property tax and insurance/maintenance scaled to the home's appreciating value each year
• →Opportunity cost of the down payment modeled as if it were invested instead
• →Home appreciation and equity built via principal paydown both factored into the verdict
• →Sanity-checked against intuitive extremes — high mortgage rates favor renting, high appreciation favors buying
• →Watermarked by Cikal Studio Labs · Works on any device, no install required