Buy vs Rent spreadsheet?

sirhobo

I was wondering if anyone knew of a detailed calculator or ideally a spreadsheet that would help me compare the costs of buying a property versus renting?

I found one on MSN but wasn't sure if there was a better one available:
http://money.uk.msn.com/mortgages/calculate/rent_buy_calculator.aspx

Thanks in advance!

Sir Hobo

beingjdc

They're easy enough to make, but ultimately almost completely pointless - there are three key variables - the amount of the rent (specific to a particular property), the rate at which you could secure a mortgage (specific to you) and the likely path of house prices (all indicators say Lots Further Down, but if you're even thinking about buying, you must think they're wrong).

This last one in particular will dwarf all others -with the average property losing £20,000 a year in value, does it really matter which of renting or buying saves you £50 a month?

GDB2222

The MSN calculator misses out insurance, moving costs, costs of sourcing a new mortgage every few years, unless you take a long term mortgage. Those are the ones I thought of.

sirhobo

beingjdc wrote: »

They're easy enough to make, but ultimately almost completely pointless - there are three key variables - the amount of the rent (specific to a particular property), the rate at which you could secure a mortgage (specific to you) and the likely path of house prices (all indicators say Lots Further Down, but if you're even thinking about buying, you must think they're wrong).

This last one in particular will dwarf all others -with the average property losing £20,000 a year in value, does it really matter which of renting or buying saves you £50 a month?

I don't want to use it for decision-making, just to see what impact the different combinations and permutations of variables would have. Interesting that using a low-ish rent for London in the MSN calculator, a 0.1% property inflation rate (the lowest it would let me go, clearly still far too optimistic I agree) and current mortgage interest rates does give buying the edge with the buying price and deposit I have in mind