Comparing rent against a mortgage payment is misleading. This calculator accounts for your deposit, purchase costs, interest, principal repayment, ownership costs, appreciation and selling costs — then shows when buying overtakes renting.
Results update as you type.
Increases on renewal are governed by the RERA rental index.
One-off, non-refundable.
Refundable, so it is not counted as a cost of renting.
Mortgage of AED 1,440,000.
DLD fee, trustee fee, agency commission, VAT and financing charges. The Purchase Cost Calculator works this out precisely.
Try 0% and a negative rate to test the downside.
A renter keeps the deposit and purchase fees invested. Ignoring that return overstates the case for buying.
Service charges and maintenance rarely stay flat for a decade.
Over 10 years
Buying costs less by
AED 1,045,210
Break-even at about year 2.0
Cost of renting
AED 1,158,169
Cost of buying
AED 112,959
Property value
AED 2,664,440
Your equity
AED 1,627,453
If you stay five years
Renting would cost about AED 510,526 and buying about AED 200,172 — a difference of AED 310,354 in favour of buying.
This is not rent against a mortgage payment. Buying is measured as every dirham paid out less the equity a sale would release, which is why purchase and selling costs push the break-even later.
The link saves your assumptions only — no personal details are included.
Where the lines cross is the break-even point: before it renting has cost less, after it buying has.
The same comparison at key holding periods.
| After | Cost of renting | Cost of buying | Property value | Mortgage balance | Your equity | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 year | AED 98,560 | AED 178,501 | AED 1,872,000 | AED 1,406,949 | AED 465,051 | AED 79,941Renting |
| 3 years | AED 294,091 | AED 198,564 | AED 2,024,755 | AED 1,336,487 | AED 688,268 | AED 95,527Buying |
| 5 years | AED 510,526 | AED 200,172 | AED 2,189,975 | AED 1,259,786 | AED 930,189 | AED 310,354Buying |
| 10 years | AED 1,158,169 | AED 112,959 | AED 2,664,440 | AED 1,036,987 | AED 1,627,453 | AED 1,045,210Buying |
The "Difference" column names which option costs less at that point — not which is the better decision. Security of tenure, flexibility to relocate and the freedom to renovate are not financial figures.
Live inventory at the price you have modelled buying.
How long you expect to stay changes the answer more than any other input. We can help you think it through.
This calculator compares the real cost of renting with the real cost of buying over a period you choose. It is not a comparison of rent against a mortgage payment. Buying is modelled as all the cash you pay out — deposit, purchase costs, interest, principal and running costs — less the equity you could release if you sold in that year after appreciation and selling costs. Renting is modelled as rent, inflating annually, plus one-off tenancy costs, less the return you could earn on the cash you did not tie up in a deposit.
Rent increases at your assumed rate each year and accumulates. Agency and moving costs are added once. If you include the opportunity cost, the return earned on the deposit and purchase costs a renter keeps invested is subtracted, because that capital is genuinely available to a renter.
Total cash out is the deposit, purchase costs, every mortgage payment made so far and all ownership running costs. From that we subtract what a sale in that year would release: property value, less selling costs, less the outstanding mortgage balance. The result nets down to interest, ownership costs, acquisition and selling costs, less appreciation.
The principal portion of each payment converts cash into equity rather than consuming it. It appears in cash out, and comes back through the equity released on sale — which is precisely why buying improves relative to renting the longer you hold.
The break-even point is the first year at which the effective cost of buying falls below the net cost of renting, interpolated within that year. It moves earlier with higher rent inflation or appreciation, and later with higher purchase costs, interest rates or selling costs.
Every figure the Rent vs Buy uses is listed in the “Calculation assumptions” panel above, with its source and the date we last reviewed it.