Newcomer setup
Move from arrival tasks to banking, credit, housing, phone service, taxes, and a workable first-month plan.
Compare renting and buying over your full mortgage period, including the opportunity cost of investing the down payment and monthly savings.
Buying builds equity, but it also adds closing costs, selling costs, mortgage interest, insurance, maintenance, property tax, and repair risk.
Renting buys flexibility. The financial comparison changes if the renter invests the down payment, closing costs, and monthly ownership gap.
Use this calculator with the Mortgage & Home Buying Hub, closing costs guide, and minimum down payment guide before deciding what price range to test.
Rent vs buy after 25 years
Renting is ahead
After 25 years, renting and investing leaves you with about $717,167 more net worth in this scenario.
What this means
Renting is ahead here mainly because the renter invests the down payment and any monthly savings. It does not mean renting is always better — the assumptions you entered favour renting over this period.
Cumulative net worth
Buy net worth is home equity after selling costs. Rent + invest net worth is the down payment, closing costs, and monthly savings invested at your assumed return. Hover to inspect any year.
If you rent for 25 years
If you buy for 25 years
Minimum down payment and mortgage insurance follow Canadian insured-mortgage rules and are estimates. Verify with CMHC, Sagen, Canada Guaranty, or your lender.
Land transfer / registration estimates are modelled for BC, Ontario, Toronto, and Alberta. Other provinces use the editable closing-cost estimate.
The comparison invests the renter's down payment, closing costs, and monthly savings at your assumed return, so it is not just a payment-versus-rent comparison.
Note: Mortgage insurance is likely required because the down payment is below 20%. Verify with CMHC, Sagen, Canada Guaranty, or your lender.
Note: Rent growth can be affected by provincial rules, property type, turnover, and market conditions.
It compares the net worth path of buying with renting and investing the cash that would otherwise go into the down payment, closing costs, and ownership-cost gap, modelling mortgage balance, home value, selling costs, rent growth, investment growth, and recurring ownership costs.
Try one base case, one higher-rate case, and one lower-home-growth case. A five-year owner with high transaction costs can look very different from a ten-year owner with stable costs. If you would not actually invest the renter surplus, lower the investment return.
Confirm current mortgage rates, insurance premiums, property tax, condo fees, maintenance, land transfer tax, and selling commissions. Small differences in recurring ownership costs can shift the break-even year more than the headline mortgage payment.
No. Renting can be better in some scenarios, especially when buying has high transaction costs, ownership costs, or a short time horizon. Buying can be better when home equity growth outweighs those costs.
Not necessarily. Rent pays for housing and flexibility. The financial question is whether the renter also invests the cash that would have gone into a down payment, closing costs, and higher monthly ownership costs. If that money is not invested, the comparison can change a lot.
A down payment is money that could otherwise be invested. The calculator includes that opportunity cost so renting is compared against buying more fairly.
The estimate includes mortgage payments, interest, property tax, insurance, maintenance, condo fees, utilities differences, mortgage insurance, closing costs, and selling costs where selected.
The break-even point is the first year when buying net worth catches or passes renting and investing net worth under your assumptions.
BC, Ontario, Toronto, and Alberta registration-style estimates are included. Other provinces should use the editable closing cost estimate until more rules are added.
Start by changing one assumption at a time: mortgage rate, rent growth, home appreciation, investment return, time horizon, and selling cost. The sensitivity is often more useful than the base result.
Use a shorter time horizon and include selling costs. Buying can be harder to justify if you may move before equity growth has time to overcome closing and selling costs.
Use the combined down payment, income, and costs only if both people will share the purchase. Also test whether one income could carry the home for a short period.
Set the investment return lower or run a cash-savings scenario. Renting looks better only if the down payment and monthly ownership gap are saved or invested instead of spent.
Practical pathways
Move from arrival tasks to banking, credit, housing, phone service, taxes, and a workable first-month plan.
Build a monthly plan, reduce recurring costs, prepare an emergency buffer, and choose the next useful money step.
Compare affordability, prepare rental documents, estimate moving costs, and understand the rent-versus-buy trade-off.
Create practical Canadian letters, checklists, employment records, rental documents, and organized admin files.