Rent vs buy a $300k house
Over 30 years, buying a $300k home comes out about $125,831 ahead — comparing buying (20% down, $60,000) against renting at $1,500/month and investing the down payment plus any monthly savings. Both paths start with the same money; the difference is where it goes.
Net worth over time: rent vs buy
Both start at age 30 with enough for the $60,000 down payment. The renter invests it (and any monthly difference) at 7%; the buyer puts it into a $300k home appreciating 3%/yr with a 30-year mortgage. In today's dollars:
| Age | Rent & invest | Buy |
|---|---|---|
| 30 | $81,231 | $78,850 |
| 35 | $213,004 | $224,391 |
| 40 | $372,430 | $399,380 |
| 45 | $565,313 | $610,100 |
| 50 | $798,672 | $864,131 |
| 55 | $1,081,002 | $1,170,620 |
| 60 | $1,422,538 | $1,548,369 |
What actually drives the answer
Rent vs buy is rarely about "throwing money away on rent." It hinges on a handful of levers this projection captures:
- Price-to-rent ratio. Here a $300k home is compared to $1,500/month rent. Where rent is cheap relative to prices, renting-and-investing can win; where buying is cheap relative to rent, owning pulls ahead.
- How long you stay. Buying carries big upfront costs (down payment, closing) that take years to earn back. The crossover in this scenario is around age 31. Move sooner and renting often wins.
- The invested difference. Renting only wins if you actually invest the down payment and monthly savings — not spend them. This model assumes you do.
Assumptions: 20% down, 6.5% mortgage, 30-yr term, 3% home appreciation, 1.1% property tax, 7% investment return, 3% inflation, single filer, no-income-tax state. Your local prices, rent, and how long you'll stay change the answer — model yours in the calculator.
Renting only wins if you actually invest the difference
The case for renting rests on a quiet assumption that's easy to state and hard to keep: the money you didn't tie up in a down payment, plus any month renting costs less than owning, gets invested rather than spent. On paper, renting and investing the difference can beat buying, especially where homes are pricey relative to rents. In practice, a mortgage is a forced savings plan: every payment builds equity whether or not you feel disciplined that month.
Rent frees up cash but hands you the responsibility to deploy it, and spending has a way of expanding to fill the gap. So the honest version of the comparison isn't rent versus buy. It's buy versus rent-and-truly-invest.
If the down payment would otherwise sit in checking and the monthly savings would quietly evaporate, the renting math on this page is describing a version of you that doesn't exist yet. Automating the investment, treating it like a mortgage payment you can't skip, is what turns a theoretical edge into a real one.
Common questions
Is it better to rent or buy a $300k house?
Over 30 years in this projection, buying comes out about $125,831 ahead — buying ends around $1,548,369 vs renting-and-investing around $1,422,538. It flips based on how long you stay, local price-to-rent, and whether you actually invest the difference.
How much do you need to buy a $300k house?
A 20% down payment is about $60,000, plus closing costs. Less than 20% down usually adds PMI. Renting frees that cash to invest instead — which is the core of the trade-off.
Does renting really mean throwing money away?
No. Rent buys housing without the costs of ownership (property tax, maintenance, transaction costs), and the down payment can be invested. Buying builds equity but ties up cash and assumes appreciation. Neither is automatically "throwing money away."