buy_vs_rent
Read-only
Should someone buy this home or keep renting? Runs the TerraVue engine: a deterministic 30-year simulation plus a 500-scenario Monte Carlo over correlated market paths. Returns the probability buying wins, the breakeven hold period, and net-worth outcomes.
monthly_rent = what the person would pay to rent THE SAME HOME to live in — an
owner-occupant buy-vs-rent decision, NOT rental income they'd collect as a landlord
(this tool does not model rental cash flow; that lens lives on terravue.app). A rent
far out of line with home_price is almost certainly a misunderstanding — confirm it
before trusting the verdict. If `address` is given, the ZIP's real appreciation forecast
and regional tax/insurance defaults are used (explicit parameters still win).
Input Schema
TableJSON Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| address | No | Full US street address, or a bare 5-digit ZIP. Pass it whenever it is known: it grounds property tax, insurance and the appreciation forecast in that ZIP's real figures instead of national defaults. | |
| fixed_rate | No | Mortgage interest rate as an annual PERCENT: 6.75 means 6.75%. Not a decimal (not 0.0675). | |
| home_price | Yes | Purchase price in whole US dollars, e.g. 650000 (not 650 or 650k). | |
| hoa_monthly | No | HOA or condo fee in US dollars per month. 0 for most single-family homes. | |
| monthly_rent | Yes | What this person would pay per month, in US dollars, to rent THE SAME HOME to live in. This is an owner-occupant comparison — it is NOT rental income they would collect as a landlord. | |
| analysis_years | No | Hold period in years. Use the horizon the person actually stated — if they say 'about five years', pass 5. Only default to 30 when no horizon was given. | |
| down_payment_pct | No | Down payment as a PERCENT of price: 20 means 20%. Not a fraction (not 0.20). | |
| property_tax_rate | No | Annual property tax as a PERCENT of home value: 0.55 means 0.55%/yr. Leave unset to use the ZIP's real rate when `address` is given. | |
| home_appreciation_rate | No | Annual home appreciation as a PERCENT: 3.5 means 3.5%/yr. Prefer leaving this unset and passing `address` instead, so the ZIP's FHFA-derived forecast is used rather than a guess. | |
| investment_return_rate | No | Annual return the renter earns on invested cash, as a PERCENT: 9.5 means 9.5%/yr, roughly long-run equities. This assumption drives the result more than any other — drop it to about 4.5 if the alternative is savings rather than the market, or if the person sounds risk-averse, and present both runs. |