Run the same rent-vs-buy model on three real U.S. cities and you get a result that scrambles the usual assumption. New York — the most expensive city of the three — breaks even fastest. Austin and Columbus, both far cheaper on paper, don't break even at all within 30 years. Here's why sticker price is the wrong number to anchor on.
All three use the same model: 6.5% mortgage rate, 20% down, 30-year fixed, 4% investment return, 3% home appreciation, 3% rent inflation, 2.5% closing costs, 6% selling costs. Only the local inputs — home price, rent, property tax, and insurance — change.
Citywide typical purchase price $750,000 · typical rent $3,700/mo · effective property tax ~0.9% (NYC's assessment caps keep the official rate unusually low, though condo/co-op common charges — folded into our maintenance line here — often make up the difference)
Year-one cost to own: ~$5,040/mo · gap over renting: ~$1,340/mo
Break-even: Year 8Metro-wide typical purchase price $450,000 · typical rent $2,000/mo · effective property tax ~2.0% (Texas has no state income tax, so it leans harder on property tax — among the highest effective rates in the country)
Year-one cost to own: ~$3,850/mo · gap over renting: ~$1,850/mo
Renting wins all 30 yearsMetro-wide typical purchase price $341,700 · typical rent $1,400/mo · effective property tax ~1.6% (Franklin County, above the national average despite Ohio's reputation for affordability)
Year-one cost to own: ~$2,580/mo · gap over renting: ~$1,180/mo
Renting wins (barely) through year 30Home price and rent figures reflect mid-2026 metro-level medians reported by national real estate and rental data providers (Zillow, RentCafe, NAR, Apartment List). Property tax rates reflect 2025–2026 effective rates reported by county assessors and property tax research sites. Figures are city/metro averages — your specific neighborhood will vary.
Divide the home price by one year of rent and you get the price-to-rent ratio — the real predictor of whether buying or renting wins, regardless of how expensive a city "feels."
| City | Price ÷ annual rent | Break-even |
|---|---|---|
| New York City | 16.9 | Year 8 |
| Austin | 18.8 | Never (30 yrs) |
| Columbus | 20.3 | ~Year 30 (essentially never) |
The pattern: the lower the ratio, the faster buying wins. NYC's ratio is lowest here not because NYC is "cheap" — it's because NYC rents are extraordinarily high relative to even NYC's high purchase prices. Austin and Columbus have the opposite problem: home prices have run up faster than rents have, so buying carries a bigger relative premium in those markets right now, even though the raw dollar amounts are smaller.
The takeaway isn't "NYC is a better buy than Austin." It's that a city's reputation for being expensive or affordable tells you almost nothing about whether buying or renting wins there. Two cities can have wildly different price tags and produce the same rent-vs-buy verdict — or the same price tag and opposite verdicts — depending on this one ratio.
Notice Austin has the highest gap despite a lower purchase price than NYC. The reason is largely property tax. Texas has no state income tax, so local governments lean harder on property tax — Austin's effective rate runs roughly 2x New York's official rate. On a $450,000 home, that's about $750/month in tax alone, comparable to what a NYC buyer pays in tax on a home worth 65% more.
Columbus sits in between: Ohio's property tax is moderate, but Columbus rents are so low relative to its home prices that even a mid-pack tax rate isn't enough to tip the math toward buying within 30 years under these assumptions.
These verdicts aren't fixed laws of the cities — they're outputs of the assumptions above, and every one of them can move:
See exactly how the model works →
Buying tends to break even faster in NYC than in many cheaper cities — around year 8 under 2026 conditions — because NYC's official property tax rate is unusually low relative to home values, while rents are high relative to purchase price. That combination narrows the monthly cost gap faster than in lower-priced metros.
Under 2026 conditions, renting in Austin and investing the difference outpaces buying for the full 30-year period modeled. Austin's home prices are high relative to local rents, and Texas's property tax rate — among the highest effective rates in the country — adds an ongoing cost a renter never carries.
A lower sticker price doesn't guarantee buying wins. What matters is home price relative to local rent — the price-to-rent ratio. Columbus's rents are proportionally even lower than its already-modest home prices, giving it a higher ratio than either NYC or Austin, which is what keeps renting competitive there despite the lower dollar figures.