We Ran the Rent vs Buy Math in 586 US Cities. Buying Won in 6.

Same model, same assumptions, every city: in 550 of 586 markets, the renter ends up wealthier after ten years. This page shows why the math tips that way, where it does not, and what would change it.

Published July 20, 2026. City verdicts on this page recompute automatically when our data refreshes.

The short version

The median city, month by month

The median city in our data set has a $402,356 home that rents for $1,736 a month. Put 20 percent down ($80,471), finance the rest at 6.55 percent, and the owner's monthly bill is in the table.

That is $1,197 a month more to own the roof than to rent it, before closing costs on the way in and selling costs on the way out. The renter also keeps the $80,471 down payment. Invested at 7 percent, that money earns about $469 a month on its own.

Owning does build equity, and the model counts every dollar of it: loan paydown, appreciation, the tax deduction, all of it. In 550 of 586 cities, ten years of equity is not enough to overcome the monthly gap plus what the renter's savings earn on the side.

Principal and interest ($321,885 at 6.55%)$2,045
Property tax (median rate, 0.89%)$298
Home insurance (2026 national average)$255
Maintenance budget (1% of value per year)$335
Monthly cost of owning$2,934
Median rent for the same city$1,736

Where Buying Beats Renting

The price-to-rent ratio divides the median home price by a year of median rent. Below about 15, buying tends to win; above about 20, renting usually does.

Our verdict across 583 cities

Favor buying6Toss-up27Favor renting550

Most buy-friendly big cities

Lowest price-to-rent ratio

Most rent-friendly big cities

Highest price-to-rent ratio

The 6 cities where buying wins anyway

What the winners share is a low price-to-rent ratio: homes that cost 11 to 15 years of rent, against a national median of 18.8. These are small Midwestern and Appalachian markets where prices never detached from rents. Bankrate's comparison of the 50 largest metros points the same direction: its narrowest own-versus-rent gaps were Detroit, Philadelphia, and Cleveland.

Peoria, IL

Median $154,382, rents $1,168/mo. Price-to-rent: 11.0.

Read the Peoria analysis

Utica, NY

Median $225,470, rents $1,472/mo. Price-to-rent: 12.8.

Read the Utica analysis

Duluth, MN

Median $241,512, rents $1,575/mo. Price-to-rent: 12.8.

Read the Duluth analysis

Tupelo, MS

Median $196,256, rents $1,270/mo. Price-to-rent: 12.9.

Read the Tupelo analysis

Rockford, IL

Median $195,413, rents $1,212/mo. Price-to-rent: 13.4.

Read the Rockford analysis

Huntington, WV

Median $166,212, rents $957/mo. Price-to-rent: 14.5.

Read the Huntington analysis

The closest calls

27 cities land within $20,000 of break-even over ten years, close enough that the decision comes down to your rate, your down payment, and how long you stay. The six tightest:

What would flip the map

Rates matter most

Drop the mortgage rate from 6.55 to 5.5 percent and the median-city payment falls from $2,045 to $1,828, closing $218 of the monthly gap before anything else changes. Every point of rate is worth more than most people expect: it compounds across 30 years of interest.

Time helps less than you would think

The usual advice says buying wins if you stay long enough. Under our assumptions, the same model run to twenty years moves the count from 6 winning cities to 9. The reason is on the other side of the ledger: the money a renter saves every month, and the down payment they never parted with, compound at 7 percent the whole time. Owning has to beat that, not zero.

Rent growth above 3 percent

The model grows rents at 3 percent a year. Markets that outrun that, the way many did in 2021 and 2022, erode the renter's edge faster than the national numbers suggest.

Why people still buy, and when they are right to

A ten-year cash projection misses real things. A fixed-rate mortgage locks your housing cost while rent renews every year at the market's mercy. Principal paydown is forced saving, and most people do not invest their rent savings with the discipline the model assumes. A landlord can decline to renew; your own house cannot. Kids, schools, a shop in the garage: none of it prices into a spreadsheet.

None of that shows up in the wealth math. All of it is real. The honest way to use this page is to know what the premium for owning costs in your city, then decide if it is worth paying. In Peoria or Huntington, there is no premium at all.

Methodology

Every city runs through the same engine as our Buy vs Rent calculator with identical assumptions: 20 percent down, 7 percent mortgage rate, 30-year loan, 22 percent federal bracket, rents growing 3 percent a year, and the renter investing both the down payment and every month of savings at a 7 percent return. A city is a "buy" when the model projects the owner at least $20,000 wealthier after ten years, a "rent" when the renter wins by the same margin, and a toss-up in between. 3 of the 586 cities lacked the data for a confident call.

City prices and rents come from Zillow market data (ZHVI and ZORI), refreshed on a rolling basis. The worked example above uses the market mortgage rate (6.55 percent) rather than the model's 7 percent so the table matches what a borrower was quoted the week of July 16, 2026.

Sources

Run the numbers for your situation

National medians decide nothing. Your rate, your down payment, and your city do. Start from your city's data or enter your own.

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