Rent Vs. Buy: The New York Times Relaunches Housing Calculator

• May 13th 2024

by UrbanTurf Staff

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The New York Times has relaunched its calculator aimed at helping people figure out if they should rent or buy a home. 

Fifteen years ago, graphic editors Kevin Quealy and Archie Tse created the Rent vs. Buy calculator that integrates a number of factors that go into the decision-making process.

“The tool is an interactive calculator that uses formulas to calculate the year-by-year costs of buying and renting,” Kevin Quealy told UrbanTurf in 2010. “It then determines which is cheaper after each year.”

The calculator asks users to input their current monthly rent and the home price they’d likely purchase at, as well as variables like a down payment percentage, probable mortgage rate, annual property taxes, and the rate of home value appreciation and rent increases in their area. What the calculator spits out is a graphical representation of the time it takes for one to break even on their investment, and the return on that investment going forward. The calculator also lets you compare figures across a theoretical number of years lived in the property, so you can see the cumulative savings or loss.

The newly-launched version of the tool has been updated in a few ways, perhaps most notably now taking into account the 2017 tax law that affected the mortgage-interest deduction. 

To try it out, click here. 

This article originally published at https://dc.urbanturf.com/articles/blog/rent_vs_buy_the_new_york_times_relaunches_housing_calculator/22299.