Renting vs. Buying a Home: The 5% Rule

Ben Felix, a Canadian portfolio manager that does personal finance videos and podcast, has been arguing for years that rent versus buy is often a wash financially, and that you should make the decision for non-financial resasons. * recent 2026 video: link * 2025a: link * 2025b: link * 2021: link * 2019: ▶ this video The 2019 video goes over a handy "5% rule of thumb": start with the purchase price of home, take 5% of that: if your rent is less than that, better numbers-wise to continue renting (and investing the difference); if your rent is more, probably better numbers-wise to buy/own. The company he works for created a tool to examine the numbers: * link

The borrowed money isn't free from interest. There's no numerical sense in borrowing money at 5%+ interest to fund an investment appreciating at 3%. Some schemes might advantage it further (such as leveraging your mortgage with your retirement funds) but then we might as well also discuss further disadvantages compared to renting, such as upkeep and property taxes. Back around 2020 when mortgage rates very briefly dipped below 3%, there could have been an argument. But such is no longer the case and not likely to return soon. This guy breaks down the analysis very cleanly to a first-order approximation, using 2019 figures: ▶ this video > It's a choice between $1m in housing appreciating at 3% or $100k in stocks appreciating at 9%. Just to drive the point home: It would be $100k in stocks appreciating at 9% and monthly rent subtracted, or $1m in housing appreciating at 3% and a $900k debt growing at 5%+ interest.

> You don't need to purchase a home - but historically - if you did - you've been much better off financially. [citation needed] Per the The Credit Suisse Global Investment Returns Yearbook 2018 , the global return for real estate from 1900 to 2017 was 1.3%, while stocks returns 5.2%: * link Rent is often cheaper than mortgage payments, and is very more often cheaper than mortgage payments plus the cost of maintaining a home. If you take the difference and investment you can have just as must equity in a few decades. Preet Banerjee goes over the math in this ten minute video: * link He rents: * link If you want to know when it makes financial sense, the "5% Rule" by Ben Felix is a decent place to start: * link * ▶ this video Until recently he was a renter, but purchased a house 1-2 years ago. Not exactly happy with the decision though: * link

Hi, Australian here living in Sydney. I'm a very happy renter. Renting in Sydney annually is way under 5% of the cost of owning a house. Even if I could afford to buy a house in Sydney, I wouldn't dream of it. It's much more economically sensible to rent. The money I save in opportunity costs from renting is huge. I can invest the difference between rent and mortgage repayments and don't need to be concerned with maintenance and other costs of owning. Check out ▶ this video for more info.

I feel like this article could do a better job comparing renting and buying a home, so here's a video I think makes some good arguments about why it's not such a clear decision. ▶ this video I'd be interested in seeing analysis of how this 3rd option would historically compare to renting and home ownership.

This video explains the concept really well: ▶ this video but TLDW; the unrecoverable cost of rent is just the rent money, and a lot of people compare it with a mortgage incorrectly. A mortgage is not 100% unrecoverable, but some portions of it is unrecoverable (the interest). The other unrecoverable cost of owning is the initial downpayment. The 3% capital cost is the combination of the above interest payment and the lost income opportunity from the downpayment. Whether you buy out right with cash, or get a mortgage, you still end up paying a price either way (via interest, or via lost opportunity to deploy the cash downpayment).

When doing these rent vs buy comparisons people often neglect the opportunity cost of investing the down payment and any difference between rent and mortgage (if it exists) Rule of thumb according to [0] is that, assuming historical returns, if your yearly rent is less than 5% (1% maintenance + 1% property tax + 3% capital cost vs investing) of the property value it's better* to rent. [0] ▶ this video *local tax treatment might play a role **paying a mortgage requires less discipline than consistently investing during volatile markets ***Purely from a financial, non-emotional standpoint ****you might not be able to rent the house you want to buy

> I find it interesting that house prices are kept out of inflation. > The reason, as I understand it, is that shelter costs are kinda funny in how they are added to this statistic. Housing prices are not considered in the CPI ("cost of living") because houses are mostly an asset: > House prices are an interesting case. Houses are considered capital investment by the [US] BLS. So, when the value of your home increases that's a good thing as you didn't consume the house. In other words, you don't need to replace the house. Consumption goods are different in that you need to replace the thing you bought. Inflation is very bad for consumption goods because it costs you more to replace that thing each time you need it (food, for instance). * link > The BLS views housing as a mostly “investment” item as opposed to a consumption item. So, for instance, when you consume a hot dog and have to replace it then the cost of replacement is a direct reflection on your well-being. A $1 hot dog that costs $2 one year later is a material change in living standards, all else equal, since the hot dog is an asset that you literally consume. A house is much more complex. […] > Of course, anyone who owns a house knows that it’s not that simple. You do basically consume your house over time. For instance, my home has appreciated substantially since I purchased it just 5 years ago and underwent a hellish remodel. At that time the cost of replacement was roughly $300 per square foot. But in the ens

The thing is you still "throw money away" in owning a home through maintenance, see the 5% rule: ▶ this video . There are large, unrecoverable costs in upkeep of a home. You will have to replace the roof in 15-20 years, just to have it not go to crap. That's $20k with no actual improvement to the home. Plumbing, outdoor siding, and so on. These would normally be covered by rent.