There is no national rent-or-buy answer in 2026, and this page is the proof. We ran ten metros through the same tested engine at the same July 2026 inputs, and net-worth breakeven spans year 4 in Indianapolis to year 32 for a San Francisco house. Only one of twelve city variants hand their preset tenure to buying. Every figure below is computed from the same presets that load in our rent vs buy calculator, so the table and the city pages can never disagree.
Data last updated: July 2026. Rate anchor: Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey 30-year fixed at 6.49 percent, week of July 9, 2026. Per-city sources, dates, and derivations live in each city page’s sources and methodology sections.
The whole series in one table
Twelve rows: ten cities, with Miami split into its single-family and condo answers (they diverge) and San Francisco shown at both its condo and house tiers (they diverge in magnitude). Sorted fastest buy case first.
| City (variant) | Price | Comparable rent | Tax | Insurance /mo | HOA /mo | Breakeven | Verdict at tenure |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Indianapolis, IN | $245,000 | $1,650 Zumper houses median | 0.85% | $120 | none | Year 4 | Buying by $7,581 5-year stay |
| Chicago, IL | $420,000 | $2,520 Zumper houses | 2% | $242 | none | Year 10 | Renting by $28,728 6-year stay |
| Denver, CO | $635,000 | $2,890 Zumper houses median | 0.54% | $347 | none | Year 11 | Renting by $8,919 10-year stay |
| Phoenix, AZ | $464,000 | $2,240 Zumper houses median | 0.55% | $217 | $200 | Year 12 | Renting by $34,608 7-year stay |
| Tampa, FL | $443,000 | $2,590 Zumper houses median | 1.8% | $313 | none | Year 13 | Renting by $38,582 8-year stay |
| Seattle, WA | $880,000 | $3,700 Zumper houses median | 0.92% | $130 | none | Year 14 | Renting by $80,834 8-year stay |
| New York, NY (condo) | $750,000 | $3,700 Zumper Queens 2BR median | 1% | $100 | $1,000 | Year 14 | Renting by $66,063 10-year stay |
| Miami, FL (single-family) | $680,000 | $3,450 Zumper houses median | 1.59% | $550 | none | Year 16 | Renting by $70,723 10-year stay |
| San Francisco, CA (condo) | $1,330,000 | $5,657 Zumper 2BR median | 1.18% | $200 | $800 | Year 16 | Renting by $124,799 10-year stay |
| Miami, FL (condo) | $410,000 | $2,900 Vendor mid-band 2BR | 1.8% | $250 | $900 | Year 18 | Renting by $70,731 10-year stay |
| Austin, TX | $525,000 | $2,400 SFH comparable (research) | 2% | $207 | none | Year 24 | Renting by $102,627 7-year stay |
| San Francisco, CA (house) | $2,200,000 | $5,950 Zumper houses median | 1.18% | $350 | none | Year 32 | Renting by $645,969 10-year stay |
One row deserves a highlight, and one deserves an asterisk. Indianapolis is the only variant where the preset’s own tenure favors buying: a five-year stay finishes $7,581 ahead. Denver has the second-fastest breakeven at year 11, but its preset tenure is ten years, so it lands on the renting side by $8,919, a genuinely narrow miss. Everywhere else, at these tenures and inputs, renting and investing the difference wins, sometimes narrowly and sometimes decisively (the San Francisco house at $645,969).
Denver also carries the series’ sharpest lesson about a single input. It used to sit in the buy column, on a $2,100 insurance figure we later found was stale by roughly half. At the properly sourced $4,164 Colorado statewide premium, hail-driven and the fastest-rising in the country, the breakeven moved out a year and the verdict flipped. Nothing else about Denver changed. The Denver page tells that story in full, because it is a better lesson than any of our verdicts: recurring carry decides these, and an average is not a quote.
What actually moves these verdicts? (The three levers)
Ranked by the effect sizes we observed across ten cities, not by convention.
First, the rent you compare against. No input moved more verdicts by more years. New York’s breakeven runs 14, 12, 9, or 5 depending on whether you compare the $750,000 condo against a Queens, dossier-average, Brooklyn, or citywide rent (the borough gradient is that page’s centerpiece). Chicago is the cautionary tale this series corrected on itself, twice: at a citywide apartment median its breakeven was year 16, at the tier-matched house figure it was year 9, and re-sourcing a stale insurance premium took it to year 10 (both revisions are documented on the page). The series-wide rule that fixed it: the preset rent must match the dwelling being bought, and cheaper mismatched rents appear only as labeled sensitivity rows.
Second, recurring carry: property tax, insurance, and dues. Austin has cheap houses and no transfer or income tax, and its 2.0 percent property tax still holds breakeven at year 24; its metro tax spread (1.78 to 2.71 percent) spans year 22 to never. Tampa’s insurance quote moves its breakeven from year 12 to year 19 across realistic quotes, and its derived 1.8 percent new-buyer tax moved the whole page by four years. Miami’s condo has the friendliest price-to-rent in the coastal set and loses anyway, because $900 a month of dues plus special-assessment risk outweigh it; Phoenix’s HOA ladder moves its answer more than its celebrated low tax does.
Third, the appreciation scenario. Seattle is the purest case: flat prices never break even, 3 percent crosses in year 14, and 4.5 percent in year 7, in a market that was down 2.3 percent year over year at publication. Every city page carries the same four-scenario ladder so you can see what your own conviction is worth; none of them treats a forecast as a fact. San Francisco adds the long-tenure variant of this lever: Prop 13 caps assessed growth at 2 percent, so the tax subsidy compounds only for owners who stay.
How this series computes its numbers
Every figure is a net-worth breakeven from our tested engine: the first year the buyer walks away with at least as much wealth as the renter, counting sale proceeds net of selling costs and loan payoff against the renter’s invested upfront cash minus cumulative rent. Comparable rents are tier-matched to the dwelling being bought (Zumper medians, dated per page). Property taxes are what a NEW buyer computes from adopted millage with exemptions applied, never tenure-suppressed averages; the derivations are golden-tested in our codebase and explained on the Miami, Tampa, Denver, New York, and San Francisco pages. Transaction taxes sit on the correct side per each jurisdiction’s custom. What the engine deliberately does not model, stated once here and in every city’s assumptions box: the renter’s month-to-month cash-flow savings are not separately reinvested (which tilts results slightly toward buying), income-tax effects and itemized deductions are ignored, utilities are assumed comparable, and one-time events like Miami’s special assessments are priced as labeled lump-sum ladders rather than compounded costs. The full contract is on our methodology page and in the calculator’s assumptions.
Which city page should you read first?
Match your situation, not your zip code. If your stay is under five years anywhere, start with Indianapolis to see the best case buying gets, and note that even there a three-year stay rents. If you are choosing between boroughs or your rent alternative is ambiguous, New York shows how to think in gradients. If you are weighing a condo anywhere in Florida, Miami’s due-diligence checklist and assessment ladder are the template. If insurance quotes scare you, Tampa prices the fear. If your market’s taxes are famous, Austin (high) and Denver (low, derived) bracket the effect, though Denver also shows how fast an insurance line can eat a tax advantage. If you are waiting out a correction, Seattle prices patience. If you are in a master-planned community, Phoenix prices the dues. If you are in the Bay Area, San Francisco will either talk you out of the house or confirm your fifteen-year conviction. And whatever city you are actually in, the calculator takes your numbers raw.
The honest summary
Across ten metros, buying beat renting at the preset tenure exactly twice, and both wins were built on the same three foundations: a genuinely comparable rent, low recurring carry, and enough tenure to amortize the transaction taxes. Renting won everywhere those foundations cracked, usually because the rent being compared was for a cheaper dwelling than the one being bought, or because tax, insurance, or dues quietly doubled the carrying cost, or because the stay was too short for the exit costs. None of this says renting is smarter or buying is smarter. It says the spreadsheet is city-shaped, and the single most useful next step is to open your city’s page, then run your own rent, tax bill, and honest tenure through the calculator. The verdict is yours, not the country’s.