Rent vs Buy Calculator: Should You Rent or Buy a House? (2026)

I rent. At our net worth, this is apparently a controversial lifestyle choice. People find out what we have and then find out we rent and you can see the short-circuit happening in real time. “But you’re just throwing money away.” I know. I’ve heard.

Here’s the thing. We live in a high-cost city, in a building with a gym and a pool and a 24-hour concierge and a garage and a children’s playroom where my kids have some of their best afternoons making friends with other kids in the building. I grew up in apartment buildings. I have never — not once in my life — lived in a single-family house. And honestly? I can’t imagine it. I like saying hi to my lobby attendant. I like running into neighbors in the elevator. I like walking down the hallway and ending up in a ten-minute conversation about nothing. I like that my kids think “going downstairs” is a social event.

Are some of our neighbors snobby and entitled and complaining about everything? Absolutely. Are there too many designer dogs and too many parents who can’t stop talking about which private school their kid got into? Absolutely. But this is our community. And the thing about community is that it’s annoying and wonderful at the same time, and you don’t get one without the other.

The math on buying hasn’t made sense for most of the time we’ve lived here. I don’t mean “doesn’t feel right” — I mean I’ve run the numbers obsessively, probably hundreds of times at this point, and renting plus investing the difference kept winning. Not by a little. By a lot. The opportunity cost of a down payment in a market that was returning 20%+ some years is genuinely enormous. People don’t like hearing that. They especially don’t like hearing it from someone who could write the check.

We’re actually looking to buy now. Things have shifted — rates, our family size, the reality of needing more space. But I want to put 50% down. My husband thinks this is insane. Most financial advisors would think this is insane. I don’t do leverage I can’t sleep through. That’s it. That’s the whole philosophy. If a mortgage keeps me up at 2am running scenarios in my head, the “optimal” leverage ratio is irrelevant because I am not a spreadsheet. I am a person with an anxious brain and two kids who wake up early.

The rent vs. buy question is deeply personal and most of the takes online are terrible. Homeowners are emotionally invested in validating their choice. Renters are emotionally invested in validating theirs. The actual answer depends on your city, your timeline, your opportunity cost, your tax situation, and — honestly — your nervous system. This calculator won’t tell you what to do. But it’ll show you the real numbers, including the ones people conveniently leave out. (Maintenance. Property tax increases. The return you’d get if you invested your down payment instead. All of it.)

I built this because I got tired of back-of-napkin arguments from people who hadn’t actually modeled it. Children of immigrants don’t buy houses on vibes. We buy them on spreadsheets. Or we don’t buy them at all, for a decade, and then we write about it on the internet.

Enter your housing details below to see whether renting or buying makes more financial sense for your situation.