Calculating Where It's Better to Rent or Buy Over Time

A new calculator represented on a map of the United States identifies 10 counties where buying becomes a better financial option than renting the quickest. The national breakeven year was 2.6.

Iowa, Virginia, and Louisiana each had two counties on SmartAsset's list. Lucas and Jones, Iowa have a combined average monthly rent of $959, and a combined average monthly mortgage payment of $637. The breakeven year, the point at which the total costs of renting become greater than the total costs of buying, was 1 for both counties. Stewart, Georgia, ranked number one on the list, had a 0.6 breakeven year, with an average monthly mortgage payment of $380 and average monthly rent of $912.

We compared the total costs of buying and renting a typical home or rental in each county, for a household earning $100,000 a year. For the “buy” scenario, we made the following assumptions: a mortgage rate of 4.5 percent, closing costs of $2,000 and a down payment of 20 percent. For each county, we calculated the breakeven point in the buy vs. rent decision. The counties with the shortest time to break even are the best places to buy.

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