Frequently Asked Questions

Often when you plan to stay long enough to overcome closing and selling costs - commonly 5 to 10 years - but it depends on rates, local rents, and how stable your timeline is.

Taxes, insurance costs, price-to-rent ratio, and rent growth vary by market. A city with high taxes and slow appreciation may favor renting, while a city with low taxes and strong rent growth may favor buying.

The rent vs buy decision depends on your timeline, local market conditions, and your financial profile. Use the calculator with your local data and test multiple scenarios to get a personalized recommendation.

The price-to-rent ratio divides a home's purchase price by its annual rent. A ratio above 20 typically favors renting, while below 15 often favors buying. Between 15-20 depends on your specific situation.

Mortgage rate, time horizon, selling costs, and appreciation assumptions have the biggest impact on results. Small changes to these can flip the recommendation.

For buying: mortgage payments (principal & interest), property taxes, homeowners insurance, HOA fees, maintenance, closing costs, and selling costs. For renting: monthly rent with optional annual increases.

The calculator uses industry-standard assumptions and real market data. However, future appreciation, rent growth, and rate changes are estimates. We recommend testing different scenarios to understand the range of outcomes.

We store your most recent scenario locally in your browser so you can continue later. You can also share results via link or copy to clipboard.

We use public datasets and published sources for rents, home prices, and tax rates. See the sources section on each city page for the specific references used.

We refresh data as new datasets are published. Update cadence varies by source, and each city page shows a data freshness indicator.

Default home appreciation is set at 3% annually. You can adjust this in Advanced Assumptions based on local market expectations.

Yes, the calculator accounts for this. Your down payment could otherwise be invested, so we factor in the potential returns you're giving up by putting that money into a home.

Tax benefits vary by situation. The standard deduction often exceeds mortgage interest + property taxes for many homeowners, reducing the tax advantage. Our calculator uses conservative estimates.

Yes. If your down payment is less than 20%, PMI is automatically calculated and included in your monthly ownership costs until you reach 20% equity.

Yes. We include a maintenance estimate as part of ownership costs so you can compare renting vs buying on a more realistic basis.