This compares where you end up owning against where you end up renting and investing what you did not tie up.
It does not declare a winner. Over any long horizon the answer is decided by growth and return assumptions nobody knows, and a calculator that names a winner is just reporting the number somebody typed in.
Compares the net position of buying against renting and investing the difference, over a horizon you choose, with transfer duty taken from the statutory scale.
Which set applies depends on the jurisdiction and the date you enter. Sources last checked 2026-08-30.
Australian Capital Territory — Transfer duty (stamp duty)
1 July 2026 onwards
Taxation Administration (Amounts Payable—Duty) Determination 2026 (DI2026-155)
New South Wales — Transfer duty (stamp duty)
1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027
How to calculate transfer duty — current thresholds and rates
Northern Territory — Transfer duty (stamp duty)
1 July 2025 onwards
Queensland — Transfer duty (stamp duty)
1 July 2024 onwards
Tasmania — Transfer duty (stamp duty)
21 October 2013 onwards
Victoria — Transfer duty (stamp duty)
1 July 2021 onwards
Land transfer duty — non-principal place of residence (current rates)
Land transfer duty — principal place of residence (current rates)
Western Australia — Transfer duty (stamp duty)
7 May 2026 onwards
Assumed property growth
The input the answer is most sensitive to. Run it high and low before drawing any conclusion; if the answer flips between plausible values, the honest conclusion is that the comparison does not settle it.
Return on invested savings
What the renter earns on the deposit and on any yearly saving. Setting it to zero flatters buying, because it assumes a renter puts the deposit under a mattress.
How long you would stay
The single input that decides most of these comparisons. Buying carries large one-off costs at both ends, and a short horizon rarely recovers them.
Selling costs at the end
Agent commission and legal costs when the owner eventually sells. Comparing an owner’s gross equity against a renter’s portfolio without them overstates owning.
The two positions are what each person would hold at the end of the horizon: the owner’s equity after selling costs, and the renter’s portfolio. The difference is the comparison.
The crossover year is the first year owning moves in front. A crossover beyond the horizon you actually expect to stay is the clearest signal the comparison offers.
A result of zero for the crossover means owning did not move ahead within the period tested. That is a real answer on those assumptions, not a failure to compute one.
Every figure below is computed by the same calculator on this page, from the inputs described. Nothing here is typed in by hand, so an example cannot disagree with the tool.
Look at the crossover year rather than the final difference. It tells you how long the assumptions have to hold before buying is ahead, and whether that is longer than you plan to stay.
Two percentage points of assumed growth, and a materially different conclusion. That sensitivity is the finding — not either individual answer.
Duty at the start and commission at the end are both paid in full regardless of how long you stay. Over three years there is very little time to earn them back.
The buyer’s upfront cash is the deposit plus transfer duty. The renter starts with exactly the same sum invested, which is what makes the two comparable rather than a comparison of someone with capital against someone without.
Each year the owner pays the loan and ownership costs; the renter pays rent, and the difference between the two is added to — or drawn from — the portfolio. Duty comes from the statutory scale for the state and contract date.
At the end the owner sells: the property is valued at the assumed growth, selling costs are deducted, and the remaining loan is repaid. What is left is the position compared against the portfolio.
How every calculator on this site is built · Regulatory sources
Growth compounds smoothly
Property and investment returns are modelled as steady annual rates. Neither behaves that way, and the order in which returns arrive matters to a real portfolio.
No tax on investment returns
The renter’s portfolio grows untaxed here. In reality it would not, which flatters renting to a degree that depends on the investor’s bracket.
The rent buys an equivalent home
The comparison only holds if the rented and purchased homes are alike. Renting somewhere smaller and investing the difference is a different decision.
It is not a decision
Security of tenure, the freedom to move, and the ability to change a home you own are reasons people choose either option, and none of them has a dollar value here.
Mortgage insurance is excluded
A deposit below the usual threshold attracts a premium that would reduce the owner’s position from the first day.
Rent is assumed continuous
Moving costs, rent-free periods and the risk of a lease not being renewed are all real and none is modelled.
Works out transfer duty on a residential purchase from the statutory scale published by the state or territory, for the contract date you give.
Works out the highest price you can complete on, given what you can borrow and the cash you have, once transfer duty and purchase costs are paid out of the same money.
Works out the regular repayment on a home loan, and what it adds up to in interest over the full term.
This calculator can be embedded on a business website, branded to match it, with a call to action that sends the enquiry to that business rather than collecting anything here.