Rent vs buy · Texas
The calculator that will tell you to keep renting.
Most rent-versus-buy tools are built to reach one conclusion. They leave out maintenance, they leave out what it costs to sell, and they pretend your down payment would have sat in a drawer earning nothing. This one includes all three, applies the Texas homestead exemption properly, and every assumption is yours to change. Sometimes the honest answer is wait — and knowing that is worth more than a flattering number.
No email required, nothing gated, and nothing stored against your name unless you choose to send it to Kenny.
Your numbers
The purchase
You enter this one. Rates are personal to your credit, your loan type and your lender — this site will never quote or suggest one. A lender can give you a real number in one conversation, and Kenny can make the introduction.
The cost of owning
Combined city, county, school and special-district rate. The default sits inside the range seen across Dallas–Fort Worth — it is not a quote for any particular address. Your appraisal district publishes the exact rate.
Roofs, HVAC, fences, water heaters, trees. Set it to zero if you like, but the house will not agree.
The cost of renting
For a fair comparison, use the rent for a home the size of the one you'd buy. DFW medians, Q1 2026: 2-bed about $1,595 · 3-bed about $1,975 · 4-bed about $2,485.
Assumptions
These two are guesses about the future — yours, not mine. They move the answer more than anything else on this page, which is exactly why they are visible and adjustable rather than buried.
The starting numbers on this page are Q1 2026 DFW market medians, not a quote. The result is only as good as the inputs — change them to match your actual situation. This model also does not assume any tax benefit from mortgage interest, because many buyers take the standard deduction and receive none; whether you would is a question for a CPA.
The honest number
Enter an interest rate to see the result.
It is the only field with no default, deliberately. Use a figure a lender has actually given you — or run it two or three times across a range to see how sensitive the answer really is. Everything else on this page is already filled in and every one of those numbers is yours to change.
Dreams 2 Doorsteps · Kenny Agbim · TREC #820897 · 469-949-8827
Prepared from figures entered by the reader. Not an appraisal, valuation, rate quote, or financial, tax, mortgage or legal advice.
Rent vs buy
What this calculator is doing, and why.
- What does the break-even year actually mean?
- It is the first year at which owning leaves you in a better net position than renting, on the numbers you entered. Before that year, renting is ahead — usually because the money spent to get in and get out has not yet been outweighed by equity. After it, buying pulls ahead and keeps going. It is a comparison of net position, not a prediction, and changing any assumption moves it.
- Why does the calculator include maintenance and selling costs?
- Because you will pay them. Most online calculators leave out annual maintenance, the cost of selling at the far end, or both, and that single omission is what makes them conclude that buying wins in year two. A roof, a compressor, a fence and a water heater are not optional expenses. Neither is the commission and title cost when you sell. Leaving them out does not make them go away, it just makes the answer wrong.
- Why is the down payment treated as an opportunity cost?
- Because the renter in the comparison still has that money. If you put cash into a house, that cash is not also sitting in an index fund, and an honest comparison has to credit the renter with the return they would have earned. That is what the return on invested savings assumption does. It is the single largest reason a real comparison is closer than the marketing version.
- How does the Texas homestead exemption change the answer?
- For a primary residence, the general residence homestead exemption removes $140,000 of value from the school-district portion of the property tax bill, and it caps the appraised value used for taxes at 10% growth a year. In a state with no income tax and comparatively high property taxes, that is a material change to the cost of owning — and it is exactly what a generic national calculator gets wrong. Toggle it off and on to see the difference on your own numbers.
- Why do I have to enter the interest rate myself?
- Because there is no such thing as a single current rate. Your rate depends on your credit, your loan type, your down payment, the property and the lender you use, and only a lender can give you a real number. This site does not quote, estimate or suggest a rate in any form. Enter a figure a lender has actually given you, or run the calculator across a few rates to see how sensitive the answer is.
- What are the assumptions doing, and how much should I trust them?
- Home appreciation, rent increases and investment return are guesses about the future — yours, not mine. They are separated out and left adjustable precisely because they drive the result more than anything else. Treat the output as an illustration of your own assumptions, not a forecast. The useful exercise is to move each one and see whether the answer holds.
- What if the calculator says keep renting?
- Then that is the answer, and there is nothing wrong with it. Renting is the right call for plenty of people for a stretch of time, usually when the horizon is short or the gap between rent and the all-in cost of owning is wide. The useful conversation at that point is what would have to change — the horizon, the price, the down payment, the rent — and when it is worth revisiting.
Want the tax line on its own? The Texas property tax estimator uses the same arithmetic as this page and shows what the homestead exemption and the 10% appraisal cap are worth over ten years.
Working through the buying side properly? The Dallas–Fort Worth buyer's guide covers the option period, inspections and closing in order, and how representation actually works explains what a buyer's agent is doing on your behalf. If you already own, the pricing analysis is prepared by a person, not an algorithm.
Begin
Straight answers, before you commit to anything.
A private consultation — buying, selling or simply working out whether now is the moment.