How long until buying beats renting?
That's the only version of this question with a useful answer, and it's the number this calculator gives you.
“Should I rent or buy” has no answer without a time horizon. Buying is almost always more expensive in year one and almost always cheaper by year fifteen. What you need to know is where the line crosses for your situation, because if you're likely to move before that year, renting is the better financial decision and nobody should talk you out of it.
Why do most rent vs. buy calculators say buy?
Because of what they leave out. Three things, and each one pushes the breakeven year further out than the typical calculator admits.
What it costs to sell. Agent commission, title, escrow and transfer taxes come out of your proceeds when you leave. That's a real cost of owning, it lands all at once, and most calculators pretend it doesn't exist. Including it moves the breakeven out by years.
What your down payment gives up. Money sitting in a house isn't invested anywhere else. A renter who puts the same money into the market has it compounding. If a comparison doesn't credit the renting path with a return on that money, it's rigged, and most of them are. The return assumption is an input here so you can set it yourself.
Maintenance. Owners replace water heaters. Renters call somebody. It's a real annual cost and it never shows up on the mortgage statement, which is exactly why people forget it.
How much does the appreciation number matter?
More than anything else on the page, which is the uncomfortable part.
Small changes to the assumed appreciation rate swing the breakeven year dramatically, and nobody knows what their house will do over the next decade. The default here is deliberately conservative. Raise it and buying looks great. That's not analysis, that's just you telling the calculator what you want to hear.
Treat the output as a range rather than a verdict. Run it at a pessimistic rate and an optimistic one, and if buying wins at both, you have your answer.
Isn't rent just throwing money away?
Not really, and the comparison people make is usually wrong.
Rent buys you shelter for a month. It's an expense, the same way groceries are. The thing people mean is that rent builds no equity, which is true, but it ignores that a large share of an early mortgage payment is interest, and interest builds no equity either. In the first several years of a loan, the portion going to principal is much smaller than most people assume.
Owning builds wealth over a long enough horizon. Over a short one, it often doesn't. That's the whole reason the breakeven year matters.
What this calculator can't see
Whether you're going to get transferred. Whether you want to be the person who deals with a roof. Whether staying put for eight years sounds like stability or like a trap.
Those decide more of this than the math does, and the math should inform them rather than overrule them.
If the number comes out close, or you want to run it against what you'd actually qualify for, send me your scenario.