A full after-tax financial calculator that compares the true cost of renting + investing vs. owning a home — including maintenance, your time, capital gains, and the primary residence exclusion. Get a personalized AI-written analysis with your exact numbers.
Most rent-vs-buy calculators stop at the monthly payment. We model your entire after-tax net worth — including investment returns, home equity, capital gains, and the dollar value of your time.
Side-by-side wealth projection across renting + investing vs. owning — including portfolio growth, home equity, selling costs, and break-even year.
Calculates capital gains (short- and long-term), the $250K/$500K primary residence exclusion, mortgage interest deduction vs. standard deduction, and your effective tax bracket across three portfolio types.
Quantifies the hidden cost of homeownership: yard work, repairs, snow removal, HOA meetings. Enter your hourly rate and hours per month, and watch it add up over 10–30 years.
After you enter your numbers, our AI writes a personalized summary: what's driving the result, where the risk is, and what to ask your agent. Export it as a branded PDF.
Already own? Switch to owner mode: enter your current home value, payoff balance, and rate. The calculator re-frames around "sell & rent vs. stay & hold" — including your real equity as the investable lump sum.
Dual-axis chart shows renter and owner net worth trajectories year by year. Amortization table. Sensitivity sliders. What-if scenarios. Everything updates live.
Enter your rent, a target home price, and how long you plan to stay. The model runs both paths — renting and investing the difference versus buying and building equity — and shows which one leaves you wealthier, year by year.
First-time buyer, current owner, or relocating? The 4-question wizard tailors the entire experience — labels, assumptions, and AI analysis — to your scenario.
Rent, home price, down payment, interest rate, taxes, insurance, maintenance, time, and investment return. Every field has a tooltip explaining what it means and how it affects the result.
The live scorecard updates instantly. See the after-tax net worth comparison, break-even year, monthly premium, and a full AI-written analysis you can export as a branded PDF.
Your calculator inputs stay in your browser. If you request the personalized AI report, your scenario is sent to our AI provider to generate it, and your email is used only to deliver it — not stored or read by us, never sold or shared.
Read them in your browser or save a copy. Both carry your advisor's branding. Terms and Privacy are linked in the footer.
Step-by-step guide to every field, tab, and feature — including owner mode, AI Summary, and PDF export. Covers the math, the methodology, and the assumptions behind the numbers.
Plain-English definitions for every abbreviation — P&I, PITI, PMI, MID, HOA, CGE, LTCG, SALT, MFJ, TCJA, IRA, 401k, and 25+ more — with the 2024 federal tax bracket and capital gains rate tables.
Share RentOrOwn with a friend deciding between renting and buying — copy the link and send it any way you like.
Enter what you'll realistically invest each month — not what you think you should. Be brutally honest. Without consistent investing, homeownership wins financially every single time.
Enter your current home's details. The calculator will model what happens if you sell (pocket the equity and invest it) vs. stay and keep paying the mortgage.
Where would you invest the down payment and monthly savings? This split matters a lot for the after-tax verdict. If you don't have a strong preference, a common starting point is 30% taxable / 50% Roth / 20% Traditional.
Taxable brokerage — a regular investment account (Fidelity, Schwab, Vanguard). No tax break now; gains taxed when you sell. · Roth IRA / Roth 401k — you pay tax now, but all growth and withdrawals are completely tax-free forever. Best long-term outcome. · Traditional 401k / IRA — reduces your taxable income today, but withdrawals in retirement are taxed as ordinary income.
These figures apply taxes to both the renter's portfolio and the owner's home gain. Renter: capital gains tax on taxable portion at exit, ordinary income tax on traditional 401k withdrawals, zero tax on Roth. Owner: long-term capital gains on appreciation above the primary residence exclusion.
The AI Summary uses your situation, priorities, and risk tolerance
alongside your calculator numbers to generate personalized advice.
Answer the 5 quick questions above to unlock it.
Every financial advantage of renting evaporates the moment you stop investing. Automatic transfers. Index funds. Every month. No exceptions. Without this discipline, homeownership wins every time — no calculator needed.
Calculating...
These numbers reflect your actual loan position today — not a new mortgage. The amortization table shows remaining payments from your current payoff balance. Principal share increases each month as you pay down the loan.
| Period | Payment | Principal | Interest | Tax Escrow | Balance | Cum. Equity |
|---|
The mortgage payment is the entry point, not the total cost. Here's everything that makes real homeownership significantly more expensive than it first appears.
This tool models two parallel financial paths over your chosen time horizon and compares your total estimated after-tax net worth in each scenario — not just monthly payments, but total real wealth including opportunity costs, taxes, maintenance, and the cost of your time.
For prospective buyers: (1) Renting while investing the savings vs. (2) Buying a home and building equity.
For existing owners: (1) Selling your home, investing the equity, and renting vs. (2) Staying in your home and continuing to build equity. Select "I own and I'm reconsidering" in Question 1 to activate owner mode — input labels, results, and the AI Summary all adapt to your situation.
Inputs — All input fields, the situation questionnaire, live scorecard, What-If sliders, and Email My Results. Every value updates results instantly.
Results — Side-by-side after-tax net worth, break-even timeline, monthly cost bar chart, and Price-to-Rent ratio with 60-metro reference grid.
Tax & Graph — Deduction analysis, per-bucket portfolio tax breakdown, owner home sale breakdown, and the 30-year net worth trajectory chart.
Mortgage — PITI breakdown, 8-metric summary, and full 360-month amortization table.
True Costs — All hidden ownership costs, time tax breakdown, and 30-year repair timeline.
✨ AI Summary — Personalized written analysis powered by Claude AI. Requires completing the 5-question profile. Customize tone, focus, and length before generating. Copy to clipboard or print as a branded PDF.
How It Works — This tab. Explains the math, concepts, and when each path wins.
Before running numbers, a 5-question profile appears above the inputs. It asks about your current situation, how long you plan to stay (or have owned), what matters most (or what's driving you to sell), your biggest hesitation, and your risk tolerance.
The questionnaire is not a gate — you can skip it and use the calculator freely. But completing it unlocks the ✨ AI Summary. If you select "I own and I'm reconsidering," the entire app adapts: input sections become "Your Current Home & Mortgage" and "If You Sold & Rented Instead," questions shift to owner context (how long owned, hesitation about selling), and results show "Selling Wins" vs "Staying Wins."
Once your profile is complete, the AI Summary tab generates a personalized written analysis using Claude (by Anthropic). Control three settings before generating:
Tone: Advisor · Plain English · Direct · Data-Driven
Focus: Give me a verdict · Show both sides · Address my concern · Focus on my timeline
Length: Short (2–3 paragraphs) · Standard (4–5 paragraphs) · Detailed (comprehensive)
Optional toggles add "What to watch out for" and concrete next steps. For existing owners, the AI reframes the analysis as sell-and-rent vs. hold-and-stay — not a first-time buy decision. Copy to clipboard or print as a branded PDF with your agent's contact info.
Below the main inputs, three sliders let you explore how the verdict shifts as key assumptions change — home appreciation rate, investment return, and analysis period. Drag a slider and the scorecard updates instantly.
The Results tab auto-calculates your market's Price-to-Rent ratio (home price ÷ annual rent). The ratio tells you at a glance whether your market leans toward buying or renting:
Under 15 — Strong buy signal. Owning is cheap relative to renting.
15–20 — Neutral. Both paths are competitive.
20–25 — Renting-leaning. Prices are elevated relative to rents.
Over 25 — Strong rent signal. Buying is expensive relative to renting.
A 60-metro reference grid shows how your ratio compares to cities across the US.
The 🔗 Share button in the nav encodes all 36 of your inputs as URL parameters. Copy the link and bookmark it — that link IS your saved scenario. Send it to a partner, advisor, or agent. Open it later and every field is restored exactly as you left it.
The collapsed bar just above the input accordions lets you enter a listing price, down payment %, rate, and HOA — then click Apply. It pre-fills the four most common fields at once and shows a live P&I preview. Useful when you're evaluating a specific property from a listing.
Renter/Seller Wealth = Future value of lump sum + Future value of monthly investments
For buyers: P = down payment + closing costs (money freed up by renting). For owners who sell: P = equity minus selling fees (net proceeds invested on Day 1).
Owner Wealth (buyer mode) = Future home value × (1 – sell%) – Remaining balance – Closing costs
Owner Wealth (stay mode) = Future home value × (1 – sell%) – Remaining balance (no closing costs — you already own)
Renter after-tax NW depends on how the portfolio is split across three buckets:
Owner after-tax NW applies the primary residence capital gains exclusion first ($250K single / $500K married), then taxes any remaining gain at the long-term rate. The mortgage interest deduction benefit (if itemizing beats standard) is added back.
Every financial advantage of renting — or selling and renting — hinges on one thing: you must actually invest the money. Almost nobody does it consistently.
Set up auto-transfer on rent day. Use broad index funds. Treat it like a utility bill.
The calculator automatically determines whether itemizing beats the standard deduction ($14,600 single / $29,200 married in 2024). It uses whichever is larger for your specific inputs.
Up to $250,000 of home appreciation is tax-free when you sell (single), or $500,000 if married filing jointly — as long as you lived there as your primary residence for 2 of the last 5 years.
Taxable brokerage: Gains taxed at long-term capital gains rate (0%, 15%, or 20%) at sale.
Roth IRA / Roth 401k: After-tax contributions. All growth and withdrawals completely tax-free.
Traditional 401k / IRA: Pre-tax contributions save at your marginal rate now. Withdrawals taxed at effective rate in retirement.
For buyers: Owning tends to generate greater after-tax wealth when: you stay 7+ years, your market appreciates strongly, itemizing is worthwhile, your investment discipline is weak, and/or the primary residence CGE shelters most of your gain.
For owners considering selling: Staying wins when: you have a low locked-in mortgage rate, strong local appreciation, significant CGE shelter remaining, and/or you wouldn't realistically invest the sale proceeds with discipline.
For buyers: Renting + investing tends to win when: you may move within 5–7 years, price-to-rent ratios are high, your portfolio is mostly Roth, and you actually invest the difference every month without exception.
For owners considering selling: Selling wins when: your equity is large and could earn strong returns in the market, carrying costs (taxes, insurance, maintenance) are high relative to rent, and/or your home's appreciation potential is modest. The key assumption: you must invest 100% of the net proceeds and maintain monthly investment discipline.
Budget 1% of home value per year for maintenance. Older homes: 2–3%. Covers HVAC ($3–15K), roof ($8–25K), water heater ($1–3K), appliances, plumbing, and landscaping. The rule smooths lumpy real-world costs into a consistent annual average.
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