This Italy rent vs buy calculator compares the full cost of renting against buying a home over a horizon you choose — typically ten years — using Italian purchase costs (imposta di registro, notaio fees), ongoing costs (IMU, maintenance) and your assumptions about house-price growth and rent inflation.
How it works
For the buy path the tool sums:
- the deposit plus upfront costs (taxes, notaio and agency fees as a percentage of price),
- every mortgage payment over the horizon, computed with the amortising formula
M = P·r(1+r)ⁿ ⁄ ((1+r)ⁿ − 1), - annual IMU and maintenance (a percentage of value each year),
then subtracts the home’s projected resale value (price grown at your appreciation rate) net of the remaining mortgage balance. That gives your net cost of owning.
For the rent path it sums each year’s rent, growing it at your rent-increase rate, since the deposit you would have spent is assumed kept liquid. The path with the lower net cost over the horizon is the cheaper choice.
Example
Buying a EUR 250,000 home with a 20% deposit, 3.8% mutuo over 25 years, 10% upfront costs and 2% annual appreciation, versus renting at EUR 900/month rising 2% a year. Over ten years the buyer’s payments and fees are partly offset by equity and a higher resale value, while the renter’s outlay compounds — so over a long horizon buying usually edges ahead, while over three or four years renting often wins because the upfront taxes haven’t paid back yet.
Notes
Results swing heavily on the appreciation and rent-growth assumptions, which no one can predict. Italian house prices have been broadly flat to modestly rising over the long run, with wide regional differences. Treat the output as a scenario, not a forecast, and try several growth rates.