Should You Rent or Buy?

Noble Datum has worked out whether it is better to rent or buy in every zip-code area in the United States. It has released a series of maps and tools which can help you determine if you should rent or buy in your neighborhood and to find the best place to rent or buy near your current address.

In Should You Rent or Buy in Your Neighborhood? Noble Datum has used the price to rent ratio to work out which neighborhoods it is better to buy in and which neighborhoods it is better to rent in. The price to rent ratio is the median home value in an area divided by (12 x the Median Monthly Rent). Or, in other words, the full median value of a home divided by the annual rent. If the ratio is a 15 or below, Noble Datum believe it is better to buy, above that it is better to rent.

Noble Datum has created a choropleth map which visualizes the price to rent ratio in each U.S. county. On this map the counties colored red are the places where it is best to rent and the counties colored blue are where it is best to buy. The article also includes a map which allows you to find the best neighborhoods in your area for renting and for buying a property.


If you are wondering about whether you should buy or rent a property then SmartAssest also has a series of interactive tools which can help you make the right decision. These tools include a renting vs buying calculator and an interactive map showing where it is better to rent and where it is better to buy.

SmartAsset uses a different methodology than Noble Datum to determine if it is better to rent or buy in an area. SmartAssest's Rent vs Buy Calculator allows you to enter a location in the United States to discover how many years you need to live in that location before buying becomes a better option than renting. If you change the number of years you will stay in that location you can view the total buying and rental costs and the difference between them.

The interactive map shows the counties where buying a home is better than renting based on the number of years you plan to stay in an area. You just need to enter the number of years you might be living in one area and the map changes to show the counties where renting is better (colored yellow) and the counties where buying is better (blue). If you select a state on the map you can view the top ten counties where buying is better than renting in the shortest amount of time.