Rent vs buy a $350k house
Over 30 years, buying a $350k home comes out about $161,920 ahead — comparing buying (20% down, $70,000) against renting at $1,750/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 $70,000 down payment. The renter invests it (and any monthly difference) at 7%; the buyer puts it into a $350k home appreciating 3%/yr with a 30-year mortgage. In today's dollars:
| Age | Rent & invest | Buy |
|---|---|---|
| 30 | $93,180 | $90,662 |
| 35 | $237,993 | $252,997 |
| 40 | $413,194 | $448,121 |
| 45 | $625,163 | $683,037 |
| 50 | $881,614 | $966,189 |
| 55 | $1,191,827 | $1,307,715 |
| 60 | $1,566,595 | $1,728,515 |
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 $350k home is compared to $1,750/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.
A fixed mortgage quietly hedges against inflation
One advantage of buying rarely shows up in a month-to-month comparison: a fixed-rate mortgage freezes your largest housing cost for decades while nearly everything else drifts upward. Rent tends to rise with inflation year after year. A fixed principal-and-interest payment does not budge.
Over a long stay, inflation erodes the real weight of that payment even as your income and local rents climb around it. You end up repaying the loan in cheaper future dollars. That's a real, if slow, hedge, and it's strongest when you lock a low rate and hold it for many years. The caveat: taxes, insurance, and upkeep aren't fixed, so your total cost of owning still creeps up, just far more gently than an open-ended run of rent increases.
If you expect to stay long enough for that frozen payment to fall behind rising rents, this stability is one of ownership's most underrated benefits. If a move is likely before the gap has time to open, the hedge never gets the years it needs to pay off.
Common questions
Is it better to rent or buy a $350k house?
Over 30 years in this projection, buying comes out about $161,920 ahead — buying ends around $1,728,515 vs renting-and-investing around $1,566,595. 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 $350k house?
A 20% down payment is about $70,000, 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."