At some point, many people find themselves asking the same question: should we keep renting, or is it time to buy?
The answer usually has less to do with interest rates or housing prices than with something more personal: how long this phase of life is likely to last.
Most rent-versus-buy conversations start with market conditions. In practice, the more consequential variable is time. How long will this job last? How settled does this location really feel? How likely is it that life looks meaningfully different a few years from now?
Until those questions are acknowledged, it’s difficult for any spreadsheet to feel convincing.
Why This Question Gets So Much Attention Right Now
Housing has undergone a pronounced shift over the past several years. Following the pandemic, home prices rose rapidly, mortgage rates reset higher from historically low levels, and affordability deteriorated meaningfully. Against that backdrop, the rent-versus-buy decision has taken on greater significance, even for households with no immediate plans to move.
That combination often creates pressure to act before clarity has a chance to form.
When decisions are driven primarily by that pressure, perspective tends to narrow. A more durable approach begins by stepping back from the market and asking whether renting or buying actually fits the timeline of your life right now.
The Question Most People Skip
Before running numbers or opening a calculator, there’s one question worth answering honestly:
How long do you reasonably expect this phase of life to last?
Not how long you hope it will last.
Not how long it sounds responsible to say.
Just what feels plausible, given what you know today.
This is where many people hesitate. Admitting uncertainty can feel like a failure of planning, when in reality it’s a necessary input into good planning. Careers evolve. Family needs shift. Health, geography, and priorities change over time.
Planning tends to work better when it allows for change rather than assuming things will stay the same.
What Homeownership Actually Rewards
Buying a home tends to reward commitment and time.
Ownership comes with meaningful upfront friction: transaction costs, moving expenses, and early years where equity builds slowly. Those costs are part of the tradeoff. They are the price of stability and control. For many households, ownership also creates a form of enforced saving through regular mortgage payments, which can be supportive when investing discipline is otherwise inconsistent.
Recent Zillow research on renting versus buying highlights this dynamic, showing how breakeven horizons shift based on mortgage rates and expected length of stay. Ownership becomes more resilient as time extends. Shorter stays make outcomes more sensitive to costs and timing.
One way to frame it is this:
Buying rarely disappoints because prices flatten. It disappoints when the timeline changes.
That doesn’t make buying a mistake. It simply asks something specific of you: patience and tolerance for uncertainty early on.
What Renting Actually Protects
Renting is often described as temporary or passive. In practice, it actively protects flexibility.
Renting limits exposure to transaction costs, keeps capital more accessible, and allows movement when work, family, or personal priorities shift sooner than expected. For many households, that optionality has real value, even if it’s difficult to quantify.
Renting is not frictionless. Renters live with landlord decisions, potential rent increases, and less control over their space. Those tradeoffs matter, emotionally as well as financially.
Renting and owning solve different problems.
- Renting favors adaptability.
- Owning favors permanence.
That permanence can support routines, community ties, and a sense of continuity that matters just as much as the financial outcome.
The Cost of Pretending You Know the Timeline
Stress often shows up when people force certainty where it doesn’t exist.
Some buy earlier than they’re ready out of fear of missing out. Others stretch budgets to make ownership work on paper, assuming stability will arrive later. When life shifts sooner than expected, the strain isn’t just financial. It’s emotional.
A home purchased with a misaligned timeline can become constraining, even if the numbers technically work. A rental chosen without intention can feel unsettled, even if it’s affordable. In both cases, the tension usually traces back to the same source: expectations that didn’t match reality.
Decisions made primarily to relieve discomfort often create different stresses later.
A More Useful Way to Frame the Decision
Instead of trying to predict the future, it can help to anchor the decision with a few grounding questions:
- If life changes sooner than expected, would this choice still feel acceptable?
- What do I need more right now: stability or flexibility?
- Am I choosing this because it fits my timeline, or because I’m tired of deciding?
These questions don’t produce a single right answer, but they help decisions hold up better over time.
That pause often makes the decision easier to live with.
Where Financial Planning Fits
A financial plan doesn’t decide whether you should rent or buy. It creates structure, context, and guardrails around the decision.
Planning helps clarify tradeoffs, stress-test assumptions, and show how sensitive a decision is to changes in income, timing, or mobility. Tools like the Zillow rent vs. buy calculator can be useful for exploring scenarios, but they don’t replace clarity about priorities and time horizon.
This is where advice matters most: not in predicting housing markets, but in helping people make decisions they won’t regret if life changes sooner than expected.
The goal isn’t to optimize housing in isolation. It’s to ensure that the choice supports the rest of your life without creating unnecessary strain.
Closing Reflection
Renting and buying aren’t opposing philosophies. They’re tools, suited to different seasons.
When the conversation stays focused on markets, it often misses the personal side of the decision. When it starts with time, tradeoffs, and uncertainty, the decision tends to hold up better.
Clarity doesn’t come from predicting the future. It comes from choosing in a way that respects what you know, and what you don’t, right now.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is renting always better if you’re unsure how long you’ll stay?
Not always, but uncertainty increases the value of flexibility. Shorter or less certain timelines make ownership more sensitive to upfront and exit costs.
How long do people typically need to stay in a home for buying to make sense financially?
It depends on the local market and the mortgage rate. As a general rule of thumb, buying usually requires staying in a home for multiple years before it becomes financially competitive, and higher interest rates tend to extend that breakeven period.
Does buying still make sense when interest rates are higher?
It can, especially for households with longer time horizons. Higher rates don’t eliminate the benefits of ownership, but they raise the cost of shorter stays.
Is renting “wasting money”?
Rent pays for housing and flexibility. Like any expense, its value depends on what it enables and what it avoids. For many people, renting supports mobility, preserves capital, and reduces responsibility during periods of change.
How can planning help with a decision this uncertain?
Planning doesn’t remove uncertainty. It helps you understand tradeoffs so you can choose without unnecessary pressure.
Zillow’s Rent vs. Buy research and calculator offer helpful context for how time horizon and mortgage rates can influence the decision.
D’Agaro Financial Advisory is a Registered Investment Adviser located in Virginia. Registration does not imply a certain level of skill or training. This content is for educational purposes only and is not tax, legal, or investment advice.