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About this tool
Compare renting vs buying a property. Calculate EMI, maintenance, rent, appreciation, and opportunity cost to make the right financial decision.
Rent vs Buy Calculator settles whether buying a property beats renting it over your loan tenure by comparing two net numbers: total ownership outflow minus the property's future value, against total rent paid minus the corpus you would have built by investing the down payment and every month you saved by renting. It uses the standard reducing-balance EMI formula, compounds property appreciation annually and investment returns monthly, and prices in registration charges, furnishing, maintenance, property tax, insurance, the security deposit and annual rent escalation. The output is a side-by-side cost breakdown and a plain verdict on which option leaves you better off.
Open Rent vs Buy Calculator on AltFTool — it loads instantly in your browser.
Press 'Start Calculating', then enter Property Price (₹), Down Payment (%), Interest Rate (%), Loan Tenure (Years), Monthly Rent (₹) and Rent Increase (%/yr).
Fill the rest — Maintenance/Month (₹), Property Tax/Year (₹), Insurance/Year (₹), Furnishing (₹), Registration (%), Investment Return (%/yr) and Security Deposit (₹) — then press 'Calculate'.
Read the 'Buying is Better!' or 'Renting is Better!' banner and the Cost Comparison table down to the NET COST row; 'Reset' clears every field.
Your down payment, registration charges and furnishing money are invested at your chosen return instead of vanishing from the comparison.
Maintenance, property tax, insurance, registration at a percentage of price and one-time furnishing all sit inside the buying total.
Rent escalates by your chosen percentage every twelve months, so a long horizon is not compared against today's rent frozen in place.
With the standard reducing-balance formula, EMI = P x r x (1+r)^n / ((1+r)^n - 1), where P is the loan amount after your down payment, r is the annual rate divided by 12 and n is the tenure in months. At ₹40 lakh borrowed for 20 years at 8.5%, that works out to roughly ₹34,700 a month.
Two net figures over the loan tenure. Buying = every rupee paid out (down payment, registration, furnishing, EMIs, maintenance, tax, insurance) minus what the property is worth at the end. Renting = all rent paid minus your refunded deposit minus the investment corpus built from the money you did not sink into the house. The lower net cost wins.
Because the down payment, registration and furnishing money is assumed invested from day one and compounded monthly, along with every month's difference between owning cost and rent. Raise the return from 10% to 12% and that corpus grows sharply, cutting the net cost of renting.
No — treat it as one input. The result is highly sensitive to two assumptions you are guessing at, property appreciation and investment return, and it ignores tax deductions, transaction costs on selling, and the non-financial value of owning. Run a few scenarios and talk to a qualified financial adviser before committing.
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