“Is it cheaper to rent or buy?” is the wrong question — a lower monthly payment doesn’t tell you what you’ll actually own in five or ten years. Our rent vs. buy calculator asks the better question: which path leaves you with more net worth?
- Buying side — home value grows with appreciation, the mortgage balance shrinks with amortization, and equity is the difference.
- Renting side — the down payment you didn’t spend gets invested instead, and grows at your chosen return, while rent (rising annually) is treated as a pure cost.
- Both numbers, plainly — the tool shows the actual dollar figures on each side, not just a verdict, so you can see exactly where the gap comes from.
Enter your rent, the home price, financing terms, and how many years you want to compare, and the result updates instantly. Your inputs live in the link, and the calculator is embeddable on your own site with one iframe. Worth trying with a few different appreciation and time-horizon assumptions — the “right” answer moves more than you’d expect.