How this comparison works
Both scenarios start with the same cash: your down payment and closing costs. If you buy, that cash becomes home equity. If you rent, it gets invested instead, growing at the return rate you set. Each year, whichever option costs less in cash (owning's mortgage payment, tax, insurance and maintenance, versus rent) leaves the difference free to invest too. After your chosen number of years, we compare your home equity (value minus remaining mortgage) against your invested portfolio. This is the same basic approach used by well-known rent-vs-buy models — it treats the decision as an investment comparison, not just a lifestyle one.
Why the crossover point matters more than the final answer
Most people don't ask "should I ever buy a home" — they ask "should I buy this home, right now, given how long I plan to stay." That's exactly what the chart on this page is built to show: not just who wins after your chosen number of years, but the specific year the two lines cross. If you're only fairly confident you'll stay three years but the crossover doesn't happen until year six, that's genuinely useful information regardless of what the final-year number says, since selling before the crossover point usually means paying real transaction costs (agent commission, legal fees, land transfer tax) without having built enough equity to offset them.
The assumptions that matter most
Two inputs move this calculator's answer more than any others: your assumed home appreciation rate and your assumed investment return rate. Small, realistic-looking changes to either one can flip which option wins, which is exactly why it's worth testing a few different combinations rather than trusting a single run. A common mistake is assuming recent local appreciation will continue indefinitely — Canadian markets have gone through multi-year stretches of both strong growth and flat-to-declining prices, sometimes within the same decade, so it's worth stress-testing your assumption against a more conservative number too.
What this model doesn't capture
This is a simplified model — it doesn't account for capital gains tax on investments (though a principal residence's gain is typically tax-free under Canada's principal residence exemption), the transaction costs of eventually selling either the home or the investments, or the value of the stability and control that owning provides, which doesn't show up in a spreadsheet but is genuinely part of most people's real decision. Treat it as a starting point for a conversation, not a final answer on its own.
Once you've settled on a price point, see the exact monthly payment and closing costs that price would involve.