This Rent vs Buy calculator is a great resource that calculates most of the factors you can think about: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/buy-ren

This Rent vs Buy calculator is a great resource that calculates most of the factors you can think about: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/buy-rent-calculator.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/upshot/buy-rent-cal... One thing that's hard to quantitatively compare is the availability of certain types of housing for rent or for sale. You can't buy a 1 or 2 bedroom apartment in many urban areas of the country, and it seems very hard to rent 20 acres with a house, a pond, and a horse pasture. A big thing which isn't accounted for in any of the buy-rent calculators I've seen is bankruptcy protection. I get it for the New York Times because the exemption is very low in NY, but in Texas the homestead exemption is unlimited. If you have a 2 million dollar house and get sued into declaring bankruptcy for some reason, you still have a 2 million dollar house when you're done. For me, even having $100k outside of retirement accounts (which is also bankruptcy protected) makes me nervous because I could lose it all very quickly if I get sick, injured, or get into legal trouble.