Rent vs. Buy.
Most "buy a house" advice ignores the opportunity cost of your down payment. This calculator runs the real math — including investing what you'd otherwise put down.
Both lines show your projected net worth from each path. The crossover is the year buying overtakes rent + invest.
The real math of rent vs. buy.
Most rent-vs-buy conversations are framed as "buying builds equity, renting throws money away." That's incomplete. The actual comparison is total wealth at sale, after every cost on both sides — and most importantly, including the opportunity cost of the money you'd otherwise invest.
On the buy side, your net worth at any point is the sale value of the home (minus selling costs) minus your remaining mortgage balance. The down payment is no longer cash — it's locked into equity. You also pay property tax, insurance, maintenance, and (often) HOA every month. None of those build equity.
On the rent side, the apples-to-apples comparison is: take the same down payment + closing costs the buyer spent upfront, invest it instead, and compound it at your expected return. Each month, whichever side is cheaper, the difference also gets invested.
The crossover year is when buying's accumulated equity (plus appreciation) finally beats what the rent-and-invest portfolio would have grown to. Below a typical 5-7 year horizon, closing costs and the opportunity cost of the down payment usually mean buying loses — even in a "good" housing market. Above 10+ years, buying usually wins (especially in low-property-tax states).
This calculator ignores PMI (added cost when down payment is under 20%), mortgage interest deduction (only matters if you itemize, which most filers don't post-TCJA), and tax differences between investment accounts. Each of those would slightly shift the crossover — but rarely change the headline answer.