Real Estate · Free calculator

Rent vs Buy Break-Even Calculator

Find the number of years you must stay for buying to beat renting. Year-by-year net worth for both paths, with transparent assumptions you can change.

Short answer

Rent vs Buy Break-Even Calculator

11Years until buying beats renting

A long break-even means buying only works if you're confident about staying put — job moves and family changes make this the riskiest assumption.

How it's calculated: Stay at least 11 years for buying to pay off Adjust the inputs below to recalculate for your own numbers.

Disclaimer: Educational estimate. Excludes taxes, PMI and transaction-specific fees; future appreciation, rent growth and investment returns are uncertain. Not financial advice.

Country context

Tailor estimates to 🇺🇸 United States

All math runs in USD. We overlay United States-specific tax and cost assumptions + show local-currency equivalents at an approximate FX rate.

Transfer tax / stamp duty

1.00%

One-time on purchase

Annual property tax

1.10%

of assessed value

Rental income tax

22.0%

indicative effective

Typical mortgage rate

7.00%

Gross yield: 5–9%

Estimated United States taxes & fees on your inputs

One-time transfer tax / stamp duty$4,200

Annual recurring property tax$4,620

Income tax on annual gross rent$5,808

Capital gains on +20% appreciation (illustrative)$12,600

🇺🇸 United States note: Property tax varies massively by state (0.3% Hawaii → 2.2% NJ). 1031 exchange can defer capital gains on investment property. Tax rates are national midpoints — they vary by region, residency, and property type. FX shown at an approximate USD reference rate (updated periodically). This is an educational tool, not legal, tax, or investment advice.

New here? Watch it work in 2 seconds — then tweak it for you.

Home price$420,000

Down payment (%)10%

Mortgage rate (%)6.5%

Monthly rent for a comparable home$2,200

Horizon to test (years)15

Home appreciation (%/yr)3.5%

Rent growth (%/yr)3.5%

Investment return (%/yr)6%

Property tax (% of value/yr)1.1%

Maintenance (% of value/yr)1%

Home insurance ($/yr)$1,900

HOA ($/mo)$0.00

Buying closing costs (%)3%

Selling costs (%)6%

Try it like this

Tap a scenario to load realistic numbers, then tweak the sliders.

Related calculators

Rent vs buy net worth calculator Price-to-rent ratio calculator Down payment opportunity cost calculator Guide: how to calculate rent vs buy Guide: is it cheaper to rent or buy?

Formula used

First year buyer net worth ≥ renter net worth

Each year-end the calculator asks: if I sold now, paying 6% to sell, would I be richer than if I'd rented and invested? The first yes is the break-even.

break-even = min{ y : BuyerNW(y) ≥ RenterNW(y) }, evaluated at each year-end after selling costs

Selling cost assumed

Median homeowner tenure (NAR)

≈10 years

Use this elsewhere

Embed or cite it

Backlink-friendly embed

Embed this calculator

Free to embed on any site. Inputs preserved, link back to RevenueLab. Each format trades polish for SEO juice.

Theme

<script async src="https://www.revenuelab.fyi/embed.js"
  data-calculator="rent-vs-buy-breakeven-calculator"
  data-title="Rent vs Buy Break-Even Calculator"
  data-query="price=420000&downPct=10&rate=6.5&rent=2200&years=15&appreciation=3.5&rentGrowth=3.5&investReturn=6&propTaxPct=1.1&maintPct=1&insurance=1900&hoa=0&buyClosingPct=3&sellCostPct=6"></script>

Recommended — auto-resizes to fit, no scrollbars, and drops a crawlable link in your page.

Cite this calculator

Writing about this topic? Grab a citation — every link helps keep these tools free.

APA

RevenueLab. (2026). Rent vs Buy Break-Even Calculator. Retrieved from https://www.revenuelab.fyi/rent-vs-buy-breakeven-calculator

HTML

<p>Source: <a href="https://www.revenuelab.fyi/rent-vs-buy-breakeven-calculator" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Rent vs Buy Break-Even Calculator — RevenueLab</a> (2026).</p>

Markdown

Source: [Rent vs Buy Break-Even Calculator — RevenueLab](https://www.revenuelab.fyi/rent-vs-buy-breakeven-calculator) (2026).

What moves the break-even

Higher mortgage rates and higher price-to-rent ratios push break-even out; faster appreciation and rent growth pull it in. A one-point drop in rate typically shortens break-even by a year or more.

Every assumption, in the open

Defaults are national-median starting points, not predictions. Change any of them — the result updates instantly and nothing else is hidden in the math.

• Home price $420,000 — near the 2025 US median existing-home sale price (NAR).
• Mortgage rate 6.5% on a 30-year fixed — in line with Freddie Mac PMMS averages in 2025–2026.
• Home appreciation 3.5%/yr and rent growth 3.5%/yr — close to long-run FHFA HPI and CPI shelter averages.
• Property tax 1.1% of value and maintenance 1% of value per year — common planning rules of thumb; check your county rate.
• Insurance $1,900/yr — roughly the national average homeowners premium; coastal states run far higher.
• Closing costs 3% to buy, 6% to sell (agent commission + transfer costs).
• Investment return 6%/yr on the money the renter doesn't spend on the house — a conservative diversified-portfolio figure.
• Excluded: mortgage interest deduction, capital-gains taxes, PMI. Most households take the standard deduction, and the $250k/$500k home-sale exclusion covers most sellers.

Related guides

Long-form playbooks on the same topic, written by the RevenueLab editorial team.

Guide · 11 min read

Long-Form vs Shorts in 2026: A Channel-by-Channel Revenue Strategy

The actual per-view payout gap (often 50–200×), why Shorts-only channels plateau at $2–8K/month, and the four channel archetypes that win when they pick a primary format and stick with it.

Read the guide

FAQ

What's a typical rent vs buy break-even?

With our US-median defaults (6.5% rate, $420,000 home, $2,200 rent) break-even is about 11 years; low price-to-rent markets break even much sooner, and high price-to-rent coastal metros can exceed 15.

Does a bigger down payment shorten break-even?

Not always. It lowers interest, but the renter invests that same cash at the investment return, so the effect depends on rate vs return.

How this calculator is built

Independently maintained

Written by Sam Doshi and the RevenueLab editorial team. We don't sell the data feeds this tool is built on.

Sourced from primary data

Benchmarks come from public AdSense / Stripe / IRS disclosures and reader-submitted data — never third-party "$X per view" claims. Full methodology.

Last editorial review

Reviewed on a rolling quarterly cycle. Dated reviews are published on the methodology record for each calculator.

Editorial standards

See our editorial policy and disclaimer. Results are estimates, not advice.

Helpful?