Why Mortgage Rates, Tax Brackets and Timing Matters in the Rent vs. Buy Debate
But what if you can’t get the best mortgage rate, don’t itemize your tax deductions or stay in your home for less than seven years? Each of those raises the cost of homeownership, so buying wouldn’t be quite as good of a deal relative to renting. Here’s why each matters:

  • The best mortgage rates are available for people with the best credit scores – and a not-so-hot credit score could make your mortgage a full percentage point higher, which translates to at least a 10% difference in your monthly mortgage payment.
  • Itemizing your tax deductions lets you subtract your mortgage interest and property tax payments from your pre-tax income, which lowers your tax burden especially if you’re in a higher tax bracket. How much does not itemizing raise the cost of homeownership? It depends on your tax bracket and the amount of mortgage interest and property taxes you would deduct.
  • Selling a home in less than seven years after buying it means that you’re spreading your buying and selling closing costs overfewer years – making the average monthly cost of homeownership higher.

To see how your mortgage rate, tax bracket and time horizon affect the cost of renting versus buying, let’s look at several scenarios for a few large metros:

SCENARIO

New York

LA

Boston

Atlanta
3.5% mortgage, 25% tax bracket, stay 7 years (baseline)

-31%

-32%

-41%

-57%
4.5% mortgage *

-23%

-24%

-34%

-53%
Not itemizing tax deductions *

-18%

-21%

-30%

-50%
Stay 5 years *

-21%

-22%

-32%

-52%
4.5% mortgage, not itemizing, AND 5 years

3%

-1%

-12%

-40%

* For these scenarios, the factors not mentioned are the same as the baseline.

 

Take Los Angeles, for instance. The top row shows that if you can (1) get a 3.5% mortgage, (2) are in the 25% tax bracket and itemize your deductions, and (3) stay 7 years, it’s 32% cheaper to buy than to rent.

Change any one of those scenarios, and buying is still cheaper than renting but less so:

  •  With a 4.5% mortgage instead of a 3.5% mortgage, buying drops from 32% cheaper than renting to 24% cheaper.


  • Failing to itemize tax deductions drops buying from being 32% cheaper to21% cheaper.

  • Staying 5 years instead of 7 makes buying 22% cheaper.

  • But all three – the 4.5% mortgage, not itemizing, and staying only 5 years – makes buying just 1% cheaper than renting – as the bottom row shows.

In New York, these same differences make buying 3% MORE expensive than renting instead of 31% cheaper. In fact, with a 4.5% mortgage, not itemizing and staying only 5 years, buying is more expensive than renting in Honolulu(by 13%), San Francisco (by 10%), and San Jose (by 4%), too.

In the other 96 of the 100 largest metros, though, buying is still cheaper than renting. In Atlanta, for instance, where buying is 57% cheaper than renting in the best of circumstances (3.5% mortgage, itemizing, and staying 7 years), buying remains 40% cheaper even with a 4.5% mortgage, not itemizing, and staying only 5 years. In fact, today’s low mortgage rates make it financially better to buy even if you only stay put for 3 years in many metros. But buying a home also involves a lot of time, emotional energy and financial risk, so we can’t really recommend buying a home that you plan to live in for just 3 years even if the financial calculation is in favor of buying. Money isn’t everything.

If Buying is So Cheap …
… why isn’t everyone doing it? Home sales are still less than halfway back to normal, and the homeownership rate continues to fall. The big obstacle holding back renters who want to buy is the down payment – even more than getting a mortgage. And keep in mind, in the metros where the cost of buying is less than half of what it would cost to rent over the long term, it still takes years to save enough for a down payment. It may be 56% cheaper to buy than to rent in Denver, for instance, but it takes more than 8 years to save enough for a down payment there. And high unemployment during the recession made it even harder than usual for people to save for a down payment. On top of that, people who lost their homes or took on lots of debt might not qualify for a mortgage. Bottom Line: Buying may beat renting in every major metro by a wide margin, saving consumers thousands of dollars a year, but buying still remains out of reach for many would-be homeowners.