Free tool — for anyone weighing buying against renting
Buy-vs-Rent Quick Check
The rent-versus-buy question is usually argued all at once, in no order, with the loudest point winning. This free quick check breaks it into seven questions you can actually answer: rate buying and renting 1 to 5 on each, weight them by how much they matter to you, and it returns one score per path so you can see where the two really differ. It opens on a worked example already filled in — a fictional household weighing a $385,000 home against a $2,050 rental — so you can watch the method run before you type a number. If you do not yet know what owning that home would really cost each month, the free True Monthly Cost of a Home Estimator works that figure out first.
Take it with you — free, no signup
Direct download. No email, no account — just the files.
What it does
- Scores buying and renting side by side on seven core criteria, on the same 1–5 scale where 5 always means good.
- Puts one all-in owning number next to one all-in renting number — you enter both — with a note naming what belongs in the owning figure: the maintenance reserve and the utilities your landlord usually pays now.
- Returns one weighted score per path, names a lean only when the gap is big enough to mean something, and says “too close to call” when it is not — then tells you why the full workbook can reach a different verdict on the same household.
- Opens pre-filled with a complete worked example, so nothing starts blank.
- Opens in Excel, Google Sheets, and LibreOffice — no macros, no signup, nothing saved anywhere but your own file.
Own it, don't rent it
Want your break-even year, and a straight answer on whether you're ready?
This quick check starts every household on the same fixed weights. The full Buy-vs-Rent (Home) Decision Helper asks ten questions about your household and computes a weight for each of sixteen criteria — showing the reason every adjustment fired — then finds your break-even year from a year-by-year table under three sets of assumptions, runs six readiness gates that are allowed to answer “not yet”, and names the single criterion carrying the verdict. An 8-tab workbook you keep (Excel, Google Sheets, or LibreOffice) plus four guides.
A one-time purchase you keep and reopen when the rate moves or the plan changes — the structured workbook between a blank spreadsheet and a monthly subscription.
A decision aid, not financial, mortgage, legal, tax, or real-estate advice. The example household and all its figures are fictional. Rates and thresholds are planning assumptions you can change, not forecasts or lending criteria. Confirm what matters with your lender, a tax professional, and your own research. Free to use; please don't resell or redistribute.