Waiting for your numbers
Find out whether renting and investing, or buying with a home loan, leaves you richer.
Waiting for your numbers
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Most people compare the EMI to the rent and call it a day. Whichever number is smaller feels like the winner. But that leaves out almost everything that matters. Buying also means a down payment, closing costs, and selling costs later. Renting means you get to invest all of that instead. Once you count everything, the answer can flip completely. Take a ₹80 lakh flat with ₹20,000 rent. After 10 years, renting and investing comes out about ₹30.3 lakh ahead, even though the EMI alone is nearly three times the rent.
This is the simplest way to think about it. One person buys the flat. They pay a down payment, then an EMI every month. The other person rents the same kind of flat. They invest the down payment instead, and every month they invest whatever is left over after paying rent.
In our example, the buyer pays ₹55,541 a month for the EMI, plus ₹4,000 for upkeep, ₹59,541 in total. The renter pays ₹20,000 rent and invests the other ₹39,541. Same total spend each month, just split differently.
Years later, we check who actually has more money. That's the whole comparison.
Nobody knows the future. But two numbers matter more than anything else here: how fast the flat's price grows, and how much the renter's investments earn. Change either one, and the winner can flip. Here is what happens at different combinations of the two, after 10 years, same ₹80 lakh flat and ₹20,000 rent as before.
| Price growth ↓ / Return → | 8% | 10% | 12% |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4% a year | Rent +₹36.2L | Rent +₹50.8L | Rent +₹67.6L |
| 6% a year | Rent +₹15.7L | Rent +₹30.3L | Rent +₹47.1L |
| 8% a year | Buy +₹8.7L | Rent +₹6.0L | Rent +₹22.9L |
| 10% a year | Buy +₹37.6L | Buy +₹22.8L | Buy +₹5.9L |
Illustrative only. Your own price growth, your own return, and your own numbers will move this table.
Look at the middle: 8% growth, 10% return. Renting wins, but only by ₹6 lakh on a flat worth over a crore. That is close enough to be a toss-up. A small change either way could flip it.
Buying has costs you pay no matter what: closing costs when you buy, selling costs when you sell. Stay only a few years, and those costs eat into whatever the flat has gained. Stay longer, and there is more time for either side's money to grow.
| Years you stay | 3 | 5 | 10 | 15 | 20 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Result | Rent +₹11.1L | Rent +₹15.2L | Rent +₹30.3L | Rent +₹56.6L | Rent +₹1.03Cr |
Same ₹80 lakh flat, ₹20,000 rent, and other defaults as before, for different lengths of stay.
In this example, renting stays ahead no matter how long you wait. The lead even grows over time, because that gap compounds too, just like everything else. Your own numbers might tell a different story. That is exactly why it is worth testing your own years, not just taking this example at face value.
Thinking of putting down just 10%? Your bank might say no. The Reserve Bank of India limits how much any bank can lend, based on how big the loan is.
| Loan amount | Bank can lend up to | You need at least |
|---|---|---|
| Up to ₹30 lakh | 90% | 10% down |
| ₹30 lakh to ₹75 lakh | 80% | 20% down |
| Above ₹75 lakh | 75% | 25% down |
So on a ₹1.2 crore flat, the bank can lend at most 75%. That means you need at least ₹30 lakh down, not whatever smaller number you might have typed in. This calculator checks your down payment against these limits automatically, and warns you if it is too low.
A few things depend entirely on your own situation, so we left them out rather than guess.
None of this makes the result wrong. It just means the answer is only as good as the numbers you put in. That's why every assumption sits right next to the result, not hidden somewhere else.
How this calculator works, and what it does and doesn't account for.
It imagines two people with the same money. One buys a flat with a loan, paying a down payment, closing costs, then EMI and upkeep every month. The other rents a similar flat and invests everything the buyer would have spent instead: the down payment and closing costs on day one, then whatever is left each month after paying rent. Both spend the same total every month, and whoever pays less that month invests the difference. After the number of years you choose, we add up what each person actually has, after selling costs, the loan and tax. Whoever has more, wins.
If the gap between the two outcomes is more than 2% of the larger amount, we call it a win for whichever side is ahead. Anything closer than that is shown as “too close to call”, since small changes in your guesses could flip a result that close. For example, on a ₹80 lakh flat with ₹20,000 rent over 10 years at the default assumptions, renting and investing comes out about ₹30.3 lakh ahead, which is a clear win, not a close call.
This calculator solves for that number directly and shows it as a gauge. On a ₹80 lakh flat with ₹20,000 rent, an 8.5% loan and a 10% investment return, buying only wins over 10 years if the flat's price grows at least about 8.4% a year. At the default 6% growth assumption, renting stays ahead. Your own numbers will give a different figure, since it depends on your rent, your down payment and your loan rate.
Yes. Closing costs (stamp duty, registration, brokerage, legal fees) are added on top of the flat's price as a percentage you set, with a starting guess of 7%. Since stamp duty varies a lot by state, check your own state's rate and enter it instead of relying on the default. Selling costs (brokerage and paperwork when you eventually sell) are entered separately, with a starting guess of 2%.
Yes, at a flat rate you can change, starting at 12.5% for both the flat's profit and investment profit. This matches the long-term capital gains rate that applies to property held over 24 months and to equity mutual funds, for gains above the small yearly exemption, which this calculator does not model separately. If you plan to sell within 24 months, the profit is taxed at your income-tax slab rate instead, and the tool shows a note reminding you to change the rate in that case.
No, not yet. Deductions on home loan interest and principal only apply if you choose the old tax regime, and many salaried taxpayers are now on the new regime, where they do not apply. Because this depends so much on your personal tax situation, we left it out rather than guess, and the result assumes neither side gets an income-tax benefit. If you get a real benefit from the old regime, buying is more attractive than this calculator shows.
It starts at 20%, which you can change. The Reserve Bank of India sets limits on how much a bank can lend: up to 90% of the price for loans up to ₹30 lakh, up to 80% for loans up to ₹75 lakh, and up to 75% above that. On a ₹1.2 crore flat, that works out to a minimum down payment of about 25%, or ₹30 lakh. If you enter a down payment below what your loan size allows, the calculator shows a warning.
Yes. Property prices can fall, so this field accepts a negative number, unlike most calculators that only allow zero or positive growth. If you think prices in your area might fall or stay flat, entering a small or negative number gives you an honest picture instead of an optimistic one.
Set the down payment to 100%. The loan interest rate and loan tenure fields disappear, since there is no loan to model, and the buyer's only monthly cost becomes upkeep and property tax.
It does not model the income-tax benefit on home loan interest or principal, HRA for the renter, loan prepayments, a change in the loan's interest rate partway through, or a move to a different city partway through. It also does not know your actual state's stamp duty rate, or your actual future rent, so treat every result as an estimate built on your own assumptions, not a prediction.
This calculator gives estimates for planning and learning. It is not investment, tax or legal advice, and property prices, rents and returns can all go up or down.