Put in a home price and what you'd pay in rent for something similar. We count the closing costs, the maintenance, the fees when you sell, and what the down payment could have earned if you'd invested it instead. Then we tell you which choice leaves you with more after the years you plan to stay. Change how long you stay first. It moves the answer more than the rate does.
Buying ends with the home's value, minus what you still owe on the mortgage, minus the cost of selling it, plus anything you invested on the side when owning was the cheaper option month to month.
Renting ends with the down payment and closing costs you never spent, invested at 7% a year, plus the monthly difference invested at the discipline you set.
Mortgage interest and property tax only count as a tax saving in the years they add up to more than the standard deduction, with property tax capped at $10,000. Home value, rent and the market all move at a steady rate every year, which they never do in real life, so read the result as a direction rather than a promise. Nothing you type leaves this page.
The monthly payment is the easy part to compare. These are the things that actually decide who ends up ahead, and every one of them is a setting in the calculator above.
On a $350,000 home with 3% closing costs, more than $10,500 goes to the appraisal, title insurance, origination and the lender's fee before you move in. None of it builds equity.
Renters call the landlord when the fridge breaks. Owners write the check. Set aside about 1% of the home's value every year for repairs. A roof, a furnace or a water heater is a question of when, not if.
The biggest hidden cost is the money you didn't invest. A $70,000 down payment could be compounding in the market. If stocks return 7% and the home appreciates 3%, that cash is working harder outside the house than in it.
Mortgage interest and property tax are deductible, but only if itemizing beats the standard deduction: $14,600 single or $29,200 married in this calculator. Most homeowners never clear that bar, so the tax break is smaller than it sounds.
The property tax deduction is capped at $10,000 a year, and interest counts only on the first $750,000 of the loan. In expensive areas that shrinks the tax advantage a lot.
The renting side of the math only works if you invest what you save, every month, for years. A mortgage is forced saving. Renting is not. That is what the savings discipline setting is for, and being honest with it changes the answer more than almost anything else.
A housing cost that rent increases can't touch, and equity that builds whether or not you think about it. Stay long enough and that usually outweighs everything above.