Compare your net worth after renting and investing the difference versus buying with a mortgage. Works in any currency — just enter amounts in yours. Everything updates as you type, nothing to calculate or submit.
Renting versus buying isn't just "rent is wasted money" or "buying always builds wealth" — it depends on what the money that isn't tied up in a down payment, closing costs, and monthly ownership costs would otherwise earn if invested instead. There are two versions of this tool: the Basic calculator on this page, which works in any currency you enter amounts in, and a more detailed Advanced calculator that adds country-specific currency and cost presets — closing costs, property tax, and mortgage insurance for a set of countries — plus moving costs and inflation. Both run the same underlying comparison — month by month, whichever side spends less invests the difference — so you can start here and step up to the Advanced version whenever you want more detail, without losing the core idea.
Every field loads with an example number so you can see the calculator working immediately, instead of a blank form with no result. These are just a sample scenario, not defaults you need to clear by hand — the moment you type your first real number into any field, every other field clears itself automatically, so you start fresh with only your own figures rather than a mix of your numbers and leftover examples.
This is the calculator on this page. It compares mortgage amortization, home price appreciation, rent increases, and investment growth together, in any currency, with nothing to calculate or submit — every field updates the result as you type.
Fill in the three sections — Home & mortgage, Owning costs, and Renting — then drag the "how long will you stay" slider to see the verdict, the net-worth chart, and the year-by-year table change with your time horizon. Each month, whichever side spends less — the owner's mortgage payment plus ownership costs, or the renter's rent — invests the difference at your chosen investment return; the renter also invests the down payment and buying costs upfront, on day one. Your buying net worth is your home's value minus what's still owed on the loan and selling costs, plus anything invested along the way; your renting net worth is simply your invested portfolio.
Buying usually looks worse in the early years, because closing costs and the down payment are a large upfront hit and most of an early mortgage payment goes toward interest rather than equity. The break-even year (shown in the results) is where buying starts to pull ahead; the break-even rent figure is the monthly rent at which the two paths come out exactly equal over your chosen horizon — useful for sanity-checking your actual rent against it.
Owning costs (property tax, insurance, upkeep) are entered as one yearly percentage of the current home value rather than itemized. Income-tax effects, rent control, security deposits, moving costs, and renovation spending aren't included — for those, and for country-specific presets, use the Advanced version below.
The fuller model, on its own page: open the Advanced calculator →. It adds a country selector that loads typical closing costs, selling costs, property tax, and mortgage insurance for 13 countries (all editable); mortgage insurance that automatically drops off once your loan balance falls below 80% of the purchase price; renovation and moving costs, including the cost of a renter moving every few years; and inflation, with a "today's money" toggle to see every figure in today's purchasing power instead of larger nominal future amounts.
Beyond the same verdict, chart, and year-by-year table as the Basic version, it adds six sensitivity mini-charts — one per input — each showing how far that input alone would have to move before the verdict flips, so you can see which of your assumptions the answer actually depends on. It also lets you save up to 5 named scenarios in your own browser (nothing is uploaded), so you can compare, say, two different homes or cities side by side without re-entering everything.
To use it: pick your country first so the preset costs load, fill in the rest of the fields the same way as the Basic tool, then check the sensitivity charts to see what the verdict is most sensitive to, and save a scenario any time you want to come back to a particular set of numbers.
All five icons work off the same full, formatted HTML report — verdict, chart, buying/renting breakdown, your inputs, the year-by-year table, and the disclaimer. The download icon (arrow into a tray) saves that report as an HTML file that opens and prints cleanly in any browser. The grid icon next to it downloads the same figures as a plain CSV spreadsheet file. The copy icon copies the full report as text to your clipboard, ready to paste anywhere. The share icon uses your device's native share sheet to hand off that same HTML report as a file where supported, or falls back to copying the full report as text. The print icon opens that same formatted report in a new tab and triggers your browser's print dialog — choose "Save as PDF" there for a quick PDF. All five work right away, even before you've typed anything — click Download now and you'll get a full demo report built from the example numbers already in the form, so you can see exactly what it looks like before entering your own figures. Nothing you enter is saved between visits or sent anywhere (aside from scenarios you explicitly save on the Advanced page, which stay in your own browser); refreshing the page resets the calculator completely.
Disclaimer: This tool is illustrative only and does not reflect your specific lender's rate, local property taxes, or actual investment returns, which vary and are not guaranteed. This tool is for informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute financial, investment, tax, or legal advice. Results are hypothetical estimates based on your inputs and do not guarantee future performance. Consult a qualified professional before making financial decisions; we accept no liability for losses arising from use of this calculator. Please verify all calculations independently — this calculator may make mistakes.