- Buying pulls ahead
- First-year monthly cost
- Home price growth buying needs
- Income this home needs
Are you ready to buy at all?
Before any spreadsheet, five questions decide whether buying is even on the table. A "not yet" isn't a failure. It means renting is buying you time to get there.
Your net worth, both ways
Each line is what you'd walk away with if you left at the end of that year. The buyer sells, pays the agent and any tax, and pays off the loan. The renter started with the same cash and kept it invested, plus whatever share of each month's savings they actually invest. Where the lines cross is your breakeven.
What you pay each month
Owning costs more up front. But the principal and interest payment is locked for the life of the loan, while rent keeps climbing. This chart shows total monthly cash out the door, including taxes, insurance, upkeep, and any tax savings.
Is rent really throwing money away?
Renters lose their rent. Owners lose something too: interest, property tax, insurance, upkeep, the cost of buying and selling, and the investment return their down payment could have earned. Principal isn't on this chart, because paying it down is saving, not spending.
Where the wealth comes from
At the year you leave, here's what builds each person's net worth, and what takes it away. Bars to the right add wealth. Bars to the left are costs of getting out: selling fees and taxes.
How sure can you be?
Nobody knows what home prices or the stock market will do. So instead of one answer, here are dozens. Each cell reruns the whole model with a different assumption, centered on yours. Gold cells favor buying, violet cells favor renting, and the outlined cell is your current scenario.
The cash flows, line by line
This is the comparison laid out the way an appraiser would: every dollar in and out, by year, then the sale at the end, all discounted back to today. Open any group to see what is inside it.
Year by year
Every number behind the charts. The highlighted row is the year you plan to leave.
Show the full table
How this model works
No black box. Here's every assumption, so you can disagree with it.
For education only. This isn't financial, tax, or legal advice, and it can't know your full situation. Tax rules reflect current federal law as of September 2026 and can change. Talk to a licensed professional before making a decision this size.