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Rent or buy
Both sides costed over time, including what the deposit would have earned.
It runs entirely in this browser tab: what you type is never uploaded, and the tool makes no network request while it works. Open your browser's network panel and try it — nothing leaves the page. There is no sign-up and no account.
Settings
- Mortgage term
- The length of the loan, which is not the same as how long you stay. A number from 1 to 40.
- House prices rise
- A guess about the next ten years, and the answer turns on it. A number from 0 to 15.
- Rents rise
- Rent that never rises makes renting look better than it is. A number from 0 to 15.
- The deposit would earn
- The term every simple version leaves out, and it usually decides the answer. A number from 0 to 15.
How to use it
- Paste your text into the box above, or open a file.
- Adjust the settings beside it until the result is what you wanted.
- Copy the result, or save it as a file. The result updates as you type.
Questions
- Which currency are the answers in?
- Whichever one your numbers were in. No tool here names a currency anywhere, because it cannot know which one you meant and a wrong symbol beside a right number is worse than no symbol at all. Every result says so.
- Is tax taken into account?
- No, and every result that could be mistaken for a net figure says so. Income tax, national contributions and allowances differ by country, by year and by circumstance, and a calculator that guessed at them would be wrong for almost everybody while looking authoritative.
- Why is the payment a cent more than my bank's?
- Because a payment is rounded up to the cent here, which is what a lender charges: a payment rounded down leaves a balance behind, and a mortgage of exactly three hundred payments then runs to three hundred and one, the last of them for a penny. Your bank may round the other way, or add a fee, or use a different day-count convention — all three are in the contract.
- Is what I type uploaded anywhere?
- No. This page carries the whole tool as WebAssembly and runs it on your own device. Nothing you type is sent anywhere, and there is no network request to make while it works.
Other tools for buying
Home affordability
The price an income and a deposit will reach, with the other debts in it.
Car affordability
What a monthly budget reaches once fuel, insurance and servicing are in it.
Lease or buy
A lease hands the car back; a purchase keeps it, and that is the whole difference.
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