SmartAsset has created an interactive buy vs. rent map that highlights the metropolitan areas where buying a home is better than renting based on the number of years you plan on staying in your home.
The top 10 metro areas identified below are those places where buying becomes a better financial option than renting in the shortest amount of time.
Where is the country’s strongest buyer’s market? To answer that question, SmartAsset gathered data on average rents and home prices, then compared the financial impact of buying to renting in every metropolitan area in America. For the purpose of this study, we only considered metropolitan areas with a population greater than 200,000.
Specifically, we compared the total costs of buying and renting a typical home or rental in each metro area for a household earning $100,000 a year. For the buy scenario, we made the following assumptions: a mortgage rate of 4.5%, closing costs of $2,000 and a down payment of 20%. For each metro area, we found the breakeven point in the buy vs. rent decision. That is the point at which the total costs of renting become greater than the total costs of buying.
The metropolitan areas with the shortest time to break even are the best metro areas in the country to buy.
