RENT VS. BUY

Is it cheaper to rent or buy?

See how your state stacks up, then run your own numbers to find the breakeven point for your situation.

Housing Market

Price-to-rent ratio by state

Home price ÷ annual rent for a typical home. Roughly: under 16 usually favors buying, over 24 usually favors renting, in between is a closer call. Hover for a quick look, or click a state to see its counties.

Buying favored

Renting favored

Real data, from Zillow. Home prices and rents are Zillow's published county-level indexes (ZHVI for price, ZORI for rent), most recently updated 2026-07. Where Zillow doesn't publish a county-level figure, we fall back to that county's state average (price) or nearby metro/national average (rent) — the panel on the right says when that's happening for a given county.

Your Numbers

Run your own comparison

The two options being compared, plus how long you'd stay.

Monthly rent

Home price

Down payment

Mortgage rate

Loan term

Years you'd stay

Assumptions

What we're assuming

Rough starting points, all editable. These drive the comparison as much as the two numbers above do, so it's worth swapping in your own estimates where you have them.

Home appreciation

%/yr

Rent growth

%/yr

Investment return

%/yr

Closing costs

% of price

Selling costs

% of sale

Property tax

%/yr

Insurance

$/yr

Maintenance

%/yr

HOA dues

$/mo

Result

—

Net cost of renting

Net cost of buying

—

Breakeven year

Net cost of renting

Net cost of buying

Both lines are cumulative net cost so far: out-of-pocket spending minus what you'd get back if you moved out that year.