Rent vs. Buy

The debate "renting throws money out of the window" versus "buying makes you a slave to the bank" is usually fought on gut feeling. Rent vs. buy replaces gut feeling with a full total-cost calculation over your chosen period. On the buy side stand purchase price, incidental costs, loan interest, maintenance and service charges. On the rent side the rent and - crucially - what becomes of your equity if you invest it instead.

The most honest part is exactly this comparison: whoever buys ties up their equity in bricks. Whoever rents could invest the same equity in the capital market. The calculator takes both sides seriously, compounds the renter's invested capital and in the end contrasts the net wealth of both paths. That way the popular fallacy that rent is simply lost money disappears.

Purchase incidental costs are anything but negligible in Germany, and the calculator maps them realistically. The property transfer tax varies significantly by federal state, from 3.5 percent in Bavaria to 6.5 percent in several states such as North Rhine-Westphalia, Brandenburg or Schleswig-Holstein. On top come notary and land registry costs and, where applicable, the estate agent commission. Together that quickly reaches ten percent of the purchase price, which evaporates first when you buy.

The calculator finds the break-even, i.e. the year from which buying pays off compared to renting. In the first years the buyer is usually behind because of the high incidental costs, at some point it flips - or it does not, depending on purchase price, interest, value development and rent level. Exactly this tipping year is the number most people want to know.

Ready-made scenarios set realistic inputs with one click, and you can adjust every lever: purchase price, equity, interest and repayment rate, federal state, notary and agent rate, maintenance reserve and service charge. A yearly table and a chart show how remaining debt, property value, invested capital and net wealth develop over time.

Everything runs in the browser without signup. The calculator works with the assumptions you make - and nobody knows the future, neither the value development of your property nor the return in the capital market. So the result is a decision aid, not a forecast and not financing advice. Deliberately play with optimistic and pessimistic assumptions to see how robust your decision is.