Rent vs. Buy Calculator
The honest version: it counts the costs most calculators skip — the opportunity cost of your down payment, the fees to buy and to sell, and the upkeep — then answers the real question. How long do you have to stay for buying to beat renting and investing the difference?
Loading the calculator…
The honest way to compare renting and buying
"Rent is throwing money away" is only half the story. Owning throws plenty away too — mortgage interest, property tax, insurance, maintenance, and the agent fees you pay to buy and to sell. The fair comparison isn't rent versus a mortgage payment; it's the net worth you end up with each way.
So this tool runs both paths month by month. Both you-the-buyer and you-the-renter start with the same cash. The buyer spends the down payment and closing costs up front; the renter keeps that money and invests it. Each month, whoever spends less on housing invests the difference at your assumed return. We track the home's value as it appreciates, the mortgage balance as it falls, and both side funds as they compound — then compare net worth at your chosen horizon.
Three honest details most rent-vs-buy calculators leave out, all front and center here:
- Opportunity cost of the down payment: that lump sum could have been invested. Tying it up in a house has a real cost.
- Selling costs at exit: agent commissions and transfer fees take a chunk of the sale price — a tax on leaving that's easy to forget.
- Maintenance: a home costs roughly 1% of its value a year to keep up — money that never builds equity.
The headline result is the break-even year: the first year your net worth as a buyer overtakes your net worth as a renter. Stay shorter and renting usually wins; stay longer and buying pulls ahead. Move the "years you'll stay" slider and watch it shift.
Common questions
- How long do I have to stay for buying to beat renting?
- That's the break-even year the calculator solves for. Buying carries big up-front costs and a big exit cost, so it takes years for equity and appreciation to overcome them — often somewhere in the five-to-ten-year range, but it swings a lot with appreciation, your rate, and the return you'd earn investing instead. The tool marks the exact year on the net-worth chart.
- Why can renting win if "rent is throwing money away"?
- Because owning throws money away too — interest, taxes, insurance, upkeep, and the fees to buy and sell. And the down payment you didn't spend can be invested. This is the honest "invest the difference" model: renting only wins if you actually invest that cash. Spend it instead and buying looks much better.
- What's the "true monthly cost of owning"?
- It's the money that's actually gone each month — mortgage interest, property tax, insurance, maintenance and HOA, and PMI — minus the appreciation your home earns. It excludes the principal portion of your payment, because that's forced savings you keep as equity, not a cost. It's almost always different from your mortgage payment.
- Is anything saved or sent anywhere?
- No. Every number runs in your browser. Nothing you type is uploaded, stored, or shared — and you can export the full year-by-year breakdown to CSV with one click.
Saving the down payment is the hard part
Taly auto-splits every paycheck across your budget — so the cash for a down payment grows on its own, instead of you hunting for it. Your paycheck does the math.