Pick a suburb and a home type. We fill in the local median price and rent from the NSW Government's figures, and you can change anything. You'll see what owning costs against renting each week, and how fast prices need to grow for buying to come out ahead.
The first week—
After the years you chose
If prices grow
Who’s ahead
What the calculator follows
Both households start with the same cash. The buyer spends it on the deposit, NSW transfer duty from the same brackets as our stamp duty calculator (with the first home buyer concession if you choose it) and any other buying costs, and borrows the rest, withlenders mortgage insurance added to the loan below a 20% deposit. The renter invests that cash instead. Each month, whoever has the lower housing cost invests the difference, so neither side is credited with money it never had. At the end the buyer has the home less the loan, plus any savings; the renter has their savings.
The suburb figures are the NSW Department of Communities and Justice’s Rent and Sales Report: median sale prices for January to March 2026 and median rents for new bonds in April to June 2026, by postcode, kept only where more than 30 sales or bonds were counted. Houses are non-strata sales and house rents; units are strata sales and flat or unit rents. The eight-year growth compares the same quarters in 2018. Suburb names come from the ABS, so 1,559 suburb and postcode pairs are listed, and suburbs that share a postcode share its figures.
What it leaves out. Selling costs, because you don’t have to sell. Tax, which works against the renter: their return is taxed, while the gain on a home you live in is generally free of capital gains tax. Moneysmart’s guide to buying a house walks through the costs to put in other buying costs, and suggests checking what you could still pay if rates rose 2%. This page is general information, not financial advice.
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Week to week, renting usually is. Across Greater Sydney the median house sold for $1,550,000 in the January to March 2026 quarter and the median new house rent was $800 a week in April to June 2026, a gross yield of 2.7%, well under a mortgage rate. Units yield more, at 4.6%. Buying pays off only if prices grow enough to make up the gap, which is the number this calculator works out.
Why doesn't it assume a growth rate?
Because nobody knows it. Instead it works out the growth that makes buying and renting finish level, and shows next to it what prices in that postcode actually did over the last eight years. Whether the next eight look like those is your call, and ours is no better than anyone's.
Where do the suburb figures come from?
The NSW Department of Communities and Justice publishes median sale prices and new-bond rents by postcode every quarter. We use only medians it counted from more than 30 sales or bonds. Suburb names come from the ABS, matched to postcodes, so suburbs that share a postcode share its figures.
What does it leave out?
Selling costs, because you don't have to sell, and tax. Investment returns are taxed and the gain on your own home generally isn't, so a before-tax return flatters renting a little. It also can't price the things that aren't money: staying put, renovating, or not being asked to leave.