Renting vs Owning Total Cost Calculator

About this calculator

This calculator compares the true total cost of renting against buying a home over a chosen time horizon — not just the monthly payment, but every cash flow on both sides: rent paid over the period versus the down payment, mortgage principal and interest, property taxes, insurance, and ongoing upkeep (commonly modeled around 1% of home value per year) for owning, netted against the equity built up through principal paydown and home price appreciation.

This is the same total-cost-of-ownership thinking behind the classic price-to-rent ratio used by economists and real estate analysts to judge whether a market favors buying or renting, and behind the “opportunity cost” argument that a renter’s down-payment money, left invested elsewhere, also grows — the calculator nets all of that out to tell you which option is actually cheaper over your chosen number of years, rather than just comparing sticker prices.