Rent vs. buy calculator 2026
Buying a home builds equity through mortgage paydown and appreciation, while renting keeps the equivalent cash free to be invested elsewhere. This calculator tracks both paths month by month over a chosen horizon and shows which builds more wealth, and after how many years buying overtakes renting.
- Wealth if you buy€398,431.78
- Wealth if you rent€268,833.76
- Buying pays off after3 years
Over time
Illustration only, not financial advice. Assumes a constant rate and regular intervals; real products vary. Verify with a professional.
The month-by-month race between equity and a portfolio
The calculator runs two simulations side by side, month by month, starting from the same cash. The buyer pays a down payment plus one-off buying costs and takes out a fixed-rate mortgage for the rest, repaid with a level monthly payment computed from the standard amortisation formula for the rate and term you set. Each month the home value is compounded upward by the appreciation rate, and maintenance is charged as a percentage of that month's home value. The renter invests the same starting cash instead, and every month adds or withdraws the exact difference between the owner's outlay that month - mortgage payment plus maintenance - and the rent, which itself grows monthly at the rent-growth rate. Both totals compound monthly; nothing is discounted back to today's money.
A EUR 300,000 home over 15 years, worked through
Take a home price of EUR 300,000 with a EUR 60,000 down payment, a EUR 240,000 mortgage at 4% over 25 years, buying costs of 5% of price, monthly rent of EUR 1,200 growing 2% a year, home appreciation of 3% a year, an investment return of 5% a year, and maintenance of 1% a year, compared over a 15-year horizon. The mortgage payment works out to EUR 1,266.81 a month. After 15 years the buyer's home equity is EUR 345,106.63, while the renter's invested portfolio is EUR 212,469.92 - buying is ahead by EUR 132,636.71. Because the mortgage payment plus maintenance already exceeds the starting rent, the renter's portfolio falls behind almost immediately, and buying is already at least level with renting by year 3.
What the comparison holds fixed
Every rate you enter - appreciation, rent growth, investment return, the mortgage rate - is applied as a constant monthly compounding rate for the whole horizon; none of them varies from year to year the way real markets do. The mortgage is fixed-rate for its entire term, with no refinancing. Buying costs are a one-off percentage charged only at purchase, and maintenance is recalculated every month as a percentage of that month's appreciating home value, not a fixed euro amount. No income tax, capital gains tax or property tax beyond the maintenance line is deducted from either side. The renter is assumed to invest the full monthly difference without fail, whether that difference is positive or negative. The mortgage term and the comparison horizon are both rounded to whole years.
Where the model and the market part ways
Real appreciation, rent growth and investment returns move unevenly year to year and can turn negative, even when a long-run average looks like the flat rate you entered. Selling a home in real life usually brings agent fees, transfer costs and sometimes tax on the gain, none of which reduces the buyer's equity figure here. The renter's side assumes disciplined, automatic investing of the monthly gap, which is harder to keep up in practice than a spreadsheet suggests. Refinancing, overpayments, void periods between tenancies, moving costs and changes in personal circumstances over a 15 or 25-year stretch are all left out. The longer the horizon, the more these gaps between model and reality tend to compound alongside the numbers themselves.
Reading the crossover year without over-trusting it
The number worth trusting most is the direction and rough size of the gap, not its exact cents. Change one input at a time - the mortgage rate, the investment return, the horizon - and watch how the crossover year and the final gap move; that sensitivity tells you more than any single run. It is a reasonable way to sanity-check whether a rent or a purchase offer looks wildly out of line with typical assumptions for your situation. It is not a mortgage plan, an investment forecast or a recommendation to rent or buy, and it cannot account for anything about your life beyond the numbers you type in.
FAQ
Why does the down payment appear on the renting side of the comparison too?
Because it is real money either way. If you buy, it becomes part of your home equity from day one; if you rent, the calculator assumes you invest that same cash instead, so it keeps earning the return rate you set from the very first month. Leaving it out of the rent scenario would understate what renting is actually giving up.
What happens if the mortgage term runs longer than the horizon I compare over?
The mortgage keeps amortising on its own schedule regardless of the horizon you choose. If the term is 25 years and you compare over 15, the buyer's equity at year 15 reflects whatever loan balance is still outstanding at that point - the loan is not assumed to be paid off, sold or refinanced early just because the comparison ends.
Why can changing the investment return flip the result from buying ahead to renting ahead?
The renter's portfolio compounds every month for the whole horizon, so a higher assumed return has an outsized effect over many years, the same way it would for any long-term investment. Home appreciation compounds too, but only on the property's value, not on the borrowed part of it, which is why the two sides react differently to the same percentage change.
What does it mean when the crossover result shows 'beyond the horizon'?
It means the buyer's home equity never caught up with the renter's invested wealth within the number of years you set. Pushing the horizon slider further out, or checking whether the gap is still narrowing at the end of the period, shows whether a crossover is likely eventually or not at all under these assumptions.