Keep renting, or stop?
Enter your numbersCompare your rent with the cost of buying, using your price, rate and timeline.
Your numbers
About these inputs
Uses our published base estimate. Enter your quoted fee if different.
Of the home’s value, per year. Connecticut mill rates vary several-fold by town: worth looking yours up.
Your comparison
Enter your rent and a target price to compare
Compare modeled costs at your selected timeline.
Enter a whole number of years from 1 to 30.
Above $5,000,000 the closing-cost side of this stops being an estimate we’d stand behind. Give us a call.
A simplified projection. Selling costs, mortgage insurance and several other costs are excluded; see About this estimate. A crossover must stay ahead through year 30.
Details and assumptions
Buying has the lower modeled cost at your selected timeline. Different assumptions can change the result.
There is no crossover after which buying stays lower through year 30. Buying may still be lower at some earlier years.
Your numbers, to keep
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Questions about the numbers? Call (860) 603-2258.
This calculator needs JavaScript. The two columns below lay out the trade-off without it.
These calculators produce estimates for general information, not legal advice. Every transaction is different. Reach out to talk through yours.
About this estimate
Illustrative model, not a forecast. Assumes a 30-year fixed mortgage, 3% annual rent and home-value growth, 1.5% of home value per year for upkeep and insurance, and a 5% annual return on the initial down payment plus shown closing costs. Uses standard CATIC policies, a three-page deed and, when financed, an 18-page MERS mortgage. Uses your entered property-tax rate and attorney fee estimate; your actual quote may differ. Excludes endorsements, closing protection letters, selling costs and transfer tax, lender charges, title-search fees, escrow deposits, mortgage insurance, HOA fees, income-tax effects, and investment returns on monthly cash-flow differences. Negative modeled costs mean assumed gains exceed included costs; they are not cash payments. General information, not legal advice. Contact Mancuso Carey to discuss your closing.
Two columns, honestly kept.
Before the arithmetic, the shape of the thing. Neither column is the villain.
Flexible, and not throwing money away.
- You can leave at the end of a lease without paying to sell.
- The roof, the furnace, and the water heater are someone else’s line item.
- Your down payment stays invested and liquid.
- Your housing cost resets at every renewal, in whichever direction the market went.
- You build nothing in the property, and you control nothing about it.
Slower to start, harder to leave.
- Costs real money on the way in: down payment, closing costs, title.
- Principal payments accumulate as equity instead of disappearing.
- A fixed rate holds your payment steady while rents move.
- Maintenance, taxes, and insurance become yours, permanently.
- Selling costs money too, which is why the timeline matters more than the price.
Questions worth asking first.
How long do I need to stay for buying to beat renting?
The result depends on your inputs and the model's growth assumptions. The main result compares costs at your selected year. The crossover shows the first year buying stays lower for every remaining modeled year through year 30; an earlier advantage can reverse.
What does the calculator leave out?
Selling costs and transfer tax, lender charges, title-search fees, escrow deposits, mortgage insurance, HOA fees, income-tax effects, and investment returns on monthly cash-flow differences are not modeled. The comparison uses fixed growth assumptions; it is not a forecast or a complete budget.
Do I need an attorney if I decide to buy in Connecticut?
In practice, yes. Any closing involving title insurance requires an attorney, and in Connecticut a title insurance agent has to be a practicing attorney. Massachusetts is similar in effect: the state's high court has held a closing requires the substantive participation of an attorney.