Free first-time buyer calculator
Rent vs Buy Calculator
Put your rent next to the real cost of owning — mortgage, running costs and one-off fees — and see the numbers side by side.
Add your numbers
Compare the cost of renting and owning
Put your current rent next to the running cost of a home you could buy. The numbers are a comparison, not a recommendation either way.
Your renting numbers
Your buying numbers
This comparison leaves out house-price changes, savings growth on money not spent, remortgaging and rent-free periods. It shows the cash cost of each path with your assumptions — nothing more.
Live estimate
Over 5 yearsThe numbers side by side
Renting: total paid
£70,081
Rent paid over the period, with your yearly increase.
Owning: total paid
£104,471
One-off costs plus mortgage payments and running costs.
Owning cost after equity
£86,086
Money paid while owning, minus the part of the mortgage you would have paid off. Not counted: any change in the home's value.
Equity built
£18,385
The slice of the mortgage cleared over the period — value you keep rather than spend.
Estimate only. This is not a mortgage offer, affordability assessment, eligibility decision or recommendation.
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- Compare unlimited homes side by side, not just two
- Put overpayment amounts side by side on a scenario board
- Compare monthly running costs between the homes you are weighing up
- Every tool remembers your numbers and gathers them on one dashboard
- Download your whole plan as a printable PDF buyer pack
- Add private notes to each home, saved in this browser for next time
How this rent vs buy comparison works
Renting and buying spend money in different shapes. Rent is a clean monthly amount that tends to rise each year. Buying front-loads one-off costs — legal work, survey, moving, any property tax — then combines a mortgage payment with running costs, while quietly turning part of each payment into equity you keep.
This calculator lines the two up over a period you choose. On the renting side it totals your rent with a yearly increase you set. On the owning side it adds one-off buying costs, mortgage payments and monthly running costs, then shows the equity built — the slice of the mortgage you would have paid off — and the owning cost after that equity is taken into account.
It is a cost comparison with your assumptions, not a verdict. It leaves out house-price changes in either direction, returns you might earn on money not spent, remortgaging to a different rate, and the flexibility differences between renting and owning. It will not tell you which to do — it shows you what each path costs to run.
Common questions
Is it cheaper to rent or buy a house in the UK?
There is no single answer — it depends on local rents and prices, the mortgage rate you can get, how long you plan to stay, and what happens to prices afterwards. That is why this tool asks for your own numbers and time horizon instead of quoting a national average.
Why does how long I stay matter so much?
One-off buying costs land in year one, and in the early years most of a mortgage payment is interest rather than equity. Spread over two years those costs weigh heavily; spread over ten they matter far less. The horizon board shows the same comparison at several timescales for exactly this reason.
What does "owning cost after equity" mean?
It is everything paid out while owning — one-off costs, mortgage payments and running costs — minus the part of the mortgage balance you would have cleared. That cleared balance is value you keep rather than money spent, so subtracting it gives a fairer figure to sit next to rent, which builds no equity.
What does this comparison leave out?
Anything that needs a prediction: house prices rising or falling, investment returns on money a renter did not spend, future remortgage rates, and rent-free or reduced-rent arrangements. Leaving them out keeps the comparison factual — you can test optimistic and pessimistic assumptions by changing the inputs.
Where do the monthly running costs come from?
You enter them. Council tax, energy, water, broadband, insurance, any service charge and a maintenance set-aside all continue after moving day. Solvado's home running costs planner builds that number line by line, and you can carry the total into this tool.
Keep learning
Plain-English guides that pair well with this tool: