Rent vs buy calculator
Rent against the true cost of owning — compared honestly, not headline vs headline.
Neither answer is 'wasted money': buying builds equity but locks up your deposit and adds repair risk; renting buys flexibility and someone else fixes the boiler. Illustration only, not advice.
The naive comparison — rent versus mortgage payment — flatters buying, because part of every repayment mortgage payment is not a cost at all: it is forced saving into your own equity. The honest monthly comparison sets rent against the true costs of owning: the interest portion of the mortgage, maintenance and insurance the landlord currently pays, and the interest your deposit would have earned had it stayed in savings. Sometimes owning still wins on day one; often it starts slightly behind and wins over time as rent rises and the interest portion shrinks.
A worked example: renting at £1,200 a month versus buying the same home for £250,000 with £25,000 down. The mortgage at 4.5% over 25 years costs £1,275 a month — but only about £840 of that is interest at the start. Add roughly £250 of maintenance and insurance and £80 of forgone interest on the deposit, and true ownership cost is around £1,170: marginally cheaper than renting, before any house-price growth, and improving every year as the interest portion falls and rents drift up.
What the monthly view cannot see is time, in both directions. It ignores buying and selling costs (which is why short stays favour renting — the breakeven calculator handles that) and it ignores the long game (rent rises with the market indefinitely; a repayment mortgage ends, and retirement with no housing cost versus retirement paying market rent is the largest financial gap between the two paths). It also prices none of the non-financial terms: security of tenure and freedom to renovate versus flexibility to leave with two months’ notice. Use both calculators, then weigh the rest honestly.
Common questions
Is it cheaper to rent or buy in the UK right now?
It varies by area and by rate: with rents having risen sharply, buying is cheaper month-to-month in much of the country, while in the most expensive cities renting can still win on pure monthly cost. The honest comparison — rent vs mortgage interest plus running costs, not the whole payment — is what this calculator runs on your local numbers.
Why compare rent to mortgage interest only, not the full payment?
Because the capital-repayment slice of the payment buys you an asset — it leaves your bank account but not your net worth. Counting it as a cost would call a savings account “expensive”. The genuine costs of owning are interest, upkeep, insurance and the returns your deposit gives up.
What does renting give up financially in the long run?
Two things: rent rises with the market forever, while a repayment mortgage amortises to zero, typically before retirement; and owners keep any house-price growth on a leveraged asset. Against that, renters keep flexibility, avoid maintenance shocks and transaction costs, and can invest the deposit elsewhere. The gap compounds mostly after year five.
Isn’t renting just throwing money away?
No — renting buys housing plus flexibility, and avoids interest, maintenance and transaction costs that are equally “thrown away”. In any given year the cheaper option depends on rates, rents and how long you stay. The folklore is wrong in both directions; the arithmetic is checkable, so check it.
Numbers are half the story. Check the home itself.
One search pulls the official record on any address in England & Wales — value, flood risk, schools, noise and more, scored 0–100.