Sometimes the honest answer is keep renting.
"Renting is throwing money away" is a slogan, not arithmetic. Interest, tax, insurance, maintenance and closing costs are thrown away too — and at today's rates they add up faster than rent. We built the calculator that will tell you not to buy.
Buying is not automatically better than renting, and at 6.75% it often isn't. The honest comparison is not rent versus mortgage payment — it is the unrecoverable cost of each. For renters that is the rent. For owners it is mortgage interest, property tax, insurance, maintenance, selling costs, and the investment return you gave up by tying up a down payment. On a $1.2M California home against $4,500 rent, buying does not overtake renting until roughly year 6 — and only if the home appreciates about 5% a year. At 2% it never does.
Rent, or buy? Here's the truth.
Total unrecoverable cost of each, over the years you'll actually stay. Including the return your down payment could have earned elsewhere.
This is the single most important input on the page. Be honest.
Nobody knows this number. It decides the entire answer. Move it and watch.
Over 7 years, renting costs you $123,468 less.
On your numbers, buying overtakes renting in year 17. If you won't be there that long, we would rather you kept renting than paid us a commission.
Two towers. The shorter one wins.
Height is what the years actually cost you — money you never get back. Rent, or interest plus tax plus insurance plus maintenance plus the return your down payment gave up. Move the years slider and watch them trade places.
Want this run against a real listing, with the actual tax rate and HOA? Adriana will do it — and tell you if the answer is no.
Illustrative only. Assumes 6% long-run return on invested funds, 6% cost of selling, 1.25% property tax, 1% annual maintenance, and $2,000 annual insurance. Principal repayment is not counted as a cost because you keep it. Appreciation is a projection, not a forecast, and is the dominant driver of this result. Tax deductibility of mortgage interest is not modelled and may improve the buy case for some households — speak to a tax adviser. Not a commitment to lend. Equal Housing Opportunity.
The answer depends on a number nobody knows.
Future appreciation decides this entirely. Here is your crossover year at every plausible assumption — instead of one confident guess dressed up as an answer.
Longer bar = buying wins sooner. Coral = buying never overtakes renting within 30 years.
So what is the answer?
Your answer is year 2 if California keeps appreciating fast, never if it doesn't, and anything in between otherwise. Nobody — not us, not a bank, not a listing site — knows which. Every other rent-vs-buy calculator picks one of these numbers for you, silently, and hands you a confident answer built on a guess. We would rather show you the whole range and let you decide how lucky you feel.
If you want someone to just tell you what to do — with the reasoning, not a sales pitch — that's the call.
From here to the keys — five steps.
No mystery, no call centre, no "we'll get back to you." Every step is exactly what happens inside it.
Four questions. No credit pull, no sign-up, no obligation.
~60 secondsWhat happensIf the timing is wrong, she says so. She would rather have you as a client in two years than a casualty this year.
Same dayWhat happensUnderwritten against real documents — not a soft letter any lender prints.
~24 hoursWhat happensListing agents call Adriana. She picks up. That is worth more than a bid.
Your timelineWhat happensConditions cleared, docs signed, funded. And she tells you when PMI ends.
To the dateWhat happensThree households. One of them should have rented.
Real numbers, real verdicts.
Nothing went wrong with the house. He simply sold before the crossover — and selling costs 6%.
She was 14 months from a likely relocation. We ran it. Renting won by $61,000. She rented.
Same maths, different timeline. Past the crossover, ownership compounds hard in your favour.
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Milpitas, California · Serving all 58 counties
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Everything people actually ask.
Is renting really throwing money away?
No more than mortgage interest is. In year one of a $960,000 loan at 6.75% you pay roughly $64,000 in interest and about $19,000 of principal — the interest is gone forever, exactly like rent. Add property tax, insurance and maintenance and the unrecoverable cost of owning frequently exceeds the unrecoverable cost of renting for the first several years.
What is the break-even or crossover year?
It is the year at which the total unrecoverable cost of owning finally falls below the total cost of renting. In California at current rates it commonly lands between year 5 and year 12 — and if appreciation is weak, it may never arrive at all.
Why does the down payment count as a cost?
Because it isn't free. Money tied up in home equity is money not invested elsewhere. If $240,000 could earn roughly 6% a year in a diversified portfolio, the return you gave up is a genuine cost of buying, and honest comparisons include it. Most calculators quietly do not.
How much does appreciation change the answer?
It changes it more than anything else on the page. At 5% annual appreciation buying may overtake renting around year 6. At 2% it may never overtake it within thirty years. Nobody can tell you which will happen — which is exactly why we show you the whole band instead of picking one.
Should I buy if I might move in three years?
Almost certainly not. Selling costs alone run around 6% of the sale price, which on a $1.2M home is roughly $72,000. Add closing costs on the way in and you are deeply underwater against a renter unless the market moves sharply in your favour.
Does the mortgage interest deduction change this?
It can help, but far less than people expect. The standard deduction is high, the SALT cap limits property tax deductibility, and many California households do not itemise at all. Where it does apply, it improves the buy case — talk to a tax adviser rather than assuming.
Rent keeps rising — doesn't that settle it?
It's a real argument and the calculator models it. Rising rent is the strongest structural case for buying, because a fixed mortgage payment does not rise with it. But your taxes, insurance and maintenance do rise, and California insurance has risen sharply. Fixed-rate does not mean fixed-cost.
Why would a mortgage broker tell me to rent?
Because we would rather earn your trust now and your business later than sell you a loan you regret. If the maths says rent, we say rent. That is not generosity — it is the only way the rest of this website means anything.
Stop estimating. Get the real number.
Four questions, no credit pull. You'll get your payment, your options, and an honest read on the best fit.
The other eight calculators.
Each one shows you a number the rest leave out.
If the answer is “don't buy yet,” we'll say it.
Four questions, no credit pull. Adriana will run the honest comparison on your actual rent and your actual target — and she is entirely comfortable telling you to wait.