“Why pay rent for a home you’ll never own when that same money could go toward a mortgage on a home that may appreciate over time?” We might hear this all the time—but is buying always the better financial decision?

We examine when buying a home beats renting and investing, using data from nine Ohio counties spanning 2015–2025. Combining housing, rental, demographic, and economic data from Zillow, FHFA, the U.S. Census, FRED, and BLS, we compare regression, tree-based, and time-series models to predict one-year home-value and rent growth.

Our interactive financial calculator combines these predictions with mortgage costs, down payments, ownership expenses, investment returns, and holding periods to compare the two strategies. The goal is to help users explore how location, market conditions, and personal circumstances shape the decision, while making model uncertainty and assumptions explicit.