Rent vs. buy

Reference block: the method, a worked example and answers to common questions. It does not affect the calculation above.

How it is calculated

1. The comparison runs month by month over the chosen horizon. The renting side is the rent, growing at its own annual percent. The buying side is the down payment, the mortgage payments (the same annuity engine as the mortgage calculator) and the ownership costs — tax, repairs, the owner’s extras — as a set share of the home price per year.
2. The key adjustment: the home is an asset. From the buying costs the calculator subtracts the equity a sale would return at the horizon: the property value grown by the set percent a year, minus the bank’s remaining balance. The price appreciates as price * (1 + growth / 100) ^ years, with whole years computed exactly.
3. Each side’s total is its accumulated cost; the buying one can go negative — meaning the home’s value at the horizon exceeds everything paid. The break-even is the first month from which owning is cumulatively cheaper than renting.
4. Monthly figures are derived in exact fractions and rounded to the kopeck once; the running totals add exactly, so the yearly table agrees with the headline figures.

Worked example

The figures the page opens with: an 8 000 000 ₽ home with a 2 000 000 ₽ down payment, a 20-year mortgage at 18% (payment 92 598.69 ₽), upkeep of 1% of the price a year, home prices growing 5% a year — against rent of 45 000 ₽ growing 7% a year, over a 30-year horizon.

Renting for 30 years costs 51 008 824.80 ₽. Buying — counting the home being worth 34 575 539 ₽ at the horizon — wins from the seventh year, and over the full horizon the owner’s net cost is actually negative: the asset is worth more than everything paid.

Frequently asked questions