RentOrOwn.info is a free rent-versus-buy calculator built to answer the largest financial question most people ever ask: should I keep renting, or should I buy? The housing debate runs on half-truths. Mortgage payments get compared to rent as if the two were the same shape, closing costs get waved away, and the quiet compounding of an invested down payment gets left out of the picture entirely. We replace that fog with a single number you can defend.
Enter your rent, a home price, and a few assumptions, and the calculator returns your break-even year — the point at which the total cost of buying finally drops below the total cost of renting. Every default is visible, every assumption is editable, and every conclusion is explained in plain English. There is no signup, no email wall, and no bank cross-sell. Your inputs never leave your browser, and a scenario is shareable as a link.
Most calculators tell you what you want to hear. This one treats opportunity cost, transaction friction, and long-horizon compounding as first-class parts of the math rather than footnotes — because those are exactly the numbers that decide the answer.
Buying a home carries large up-front costs — closing costs, and the down payment you could otherwise have invested — that only pay off if you own long enough. Renting has no such friction but builds no equity. The calculator projects both paths year by year: on the buying side it stacks mortgage principal and interest, property tax, insurance, maintenance, and expected appreciation; on the renting side it invests your down payment and monthly savings at a safe return and lets them compound. Where the two net-worth lines cross is your break-even year. Stay past it and buying wins; move before it and renting was the cheaper choice.
Every default ships with a visible source and can be changed in one click, so you can swap our US-median starting figures for numbers from your own market. Read the full methodology →
It depends almost entirely on how long you stay. Buying only pays off once you own long enough to clear its up-front costs. The calculator finds your break-even year so you can see exactly where that line is for your situation.
It is the number of years you must own before buying beats renting on total wealth — bundling mortgage, taxes, insurance, maintenance, closing costs, appreciation, and the return on an invested down payment into one defensible number.
Yes. The return you could have earned by investing the down payment is a first-class input, not a footnote — for most scenarios it is the biggest single factor in the result.
No. There is no signup and no email wall. The calculator runs entirely in your browser, every default is visible, and you can share a scenario with a link.
Every default ships with a visible source and can be edited in one click. We start from current US median figures and explain each assumption in plain English so you can replace ours with your own.
The calculator is the product, but the details matter. These deep-dives explain the numbers that actually decide the rent-vs-buy question — in the same honest, math-first voice.
The same model run against real local prices, rents, effective property-tax rates and written insurance premiums. Each page shows its sources and opens the calculator with that metro pre-filled.