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3–7 yr · Over the years I will actually be here, which wins?

Rent or buy

Not a verdict. Two net worth curves from the same pile of cash, and a crossover year that moves whenever you touch an assumption — which is the honest finding here.

Every figure this page produces is illustrative. The rate you type is an assumption, not an offer; nothing here is a quote, an application or a commitment to lend. The assumptions in force are printed at the bottom of the page.

What you are working from

You type this. Plinth publishes no rates.

The single input that changes the answer most. Guess honestly rather than optimistically.

Paid on day one and never recovered. Modelled as a percentage of price.

Of the current value, not the loan. A rule of thumb, not a bill you will receive.

Nobody knows this number. That is the point of the page — try it a point lower.

What the same household would pay to rent something comparable — not what you pay now for something smaller.

What the renter earns on the deposit and on every month owning costs more. Also unknowable.

Agent commission, transfer taxes, the lot. Charged once, on the way out.

Recalculates as you type. There is no submit button and nothing is sent.

The crossover Illustrative

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Working it out.

Where each path stands when you leave

Buying — net worth
$0Sale proceeds after selling costs, less the balance still owed, plus anything invested along the way.
Renting — net worth
$0The deposit and closing costs invested on day one, plus every month owning cost more than renting.

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Every figure in this panel is illustrative and moves with the inputs on the left.

Every assumption is an input

There is no hidden number on this page. These are the five that decide it, and none of them is knowable in advance.

  • Appreciation a yearMoves the buy curve. One point either way is usually enough to move the crossover by years.
  • Investment return a yearMoves the rent curve. The renter is not burning the deposit — they are investing it.
  • Rent growth a yearRent compounds. A fixed-rate payment does not.
  • Maintenance a yearThe cost owners forget. It scales with the value of the house, not the loan.
  • Selling costCharged once, at the end, against the whole value. It is why a short hold rarely wins.

Two net worth curves from the same starting cash

Both paths begin with the same money. The buyer puts it into a house; the renter invests it. The dashed vertical rule is the year the buying curve overtakes the renting one — if it does at all inside the years you stay. Illustrative.

Two net worth curves from the same starting cash
Show these numbers as a table

Cash out of the door, cumulatively

Not net worth — just money spent. Owning starts far ahead because of the deposit and closing costs, and the two lines diverge or converge depending entirely on rent growth. Illustrative.

Cash out of the door, cumulatively

One point, and the answer changes

This is the finding, and it is not a comfortable one. The grid below re-runs your own numbers nine times, moving appreciation and investment return by a single percentage point in each direction and changing nothing else. The cell is the crossover year. A dash means buying never overtakes renting inside the years you said you would stay. Every figure is illustrative.

If those nine cells disagree with each other — and on most inputs they do — then no calculator on the internet, this one included, can tell you whether to buy. It can only tell you what you would have to believe for buying to win.

The assumptions in force

  • Both paths start with identical cash. The deposit plus closing costs. The buyer spends it; the renter invests it at the return you typed, monthly, from day one.
  • The monthly difference is invested too. Whichever path is cheaper in a given month, the difference goes into the pot at the same return. Neither side is allowed to quietly consume it.
  • Appreciation and rent growth are applied once a year, at the end of the year, at a constant rate. Real markets do neither of those things.
  • Maintenance and property tax scale with the current value, not the purchase price or the loan.
  • Selling costs are charged once, on exit, against the whole value. Nothing is charged for the transaction cost of moving out of a rental.
  • No tax is modelled at all. No mortgage interest deduction, no property tax deduction, no capital gains exclusion, no tax on the investment returns. All four are real, they push in opposite directions, and they depend on your filing position rather than on the house.
  • Mortgage insurance is not modelled here. Below 20% down it is a real monthly cost on the owning side — use the monthly payment calculator alongside this one.
  • Nothing here is a quote, an offer, an application or a commitment to lend.

No obligation, and no transmission

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This form does not send anything. It validates what you type and then stops. Nothing is stored, nothing is transmitted, no cookie is set and nobody will call you. The demonstration is the point — on a real build one function call inLeadForm.astro would hand this to a CRM.

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