Financial Analyst Settles Rent vs Buy Debate With Excel Model (download available)

Should you buy a home or keep renting? I get this question all the time. After years in private equity building financial models for a living, I finally decided to build the definitive Excel model to compare buying vs. renting. And the results genuinely surprised me. In this video, I walk you step-by-step through the exact model I built — the same one you can download using the link below, so you can plug in your own numbers and see what the math says for your situation. We’ll look at home appreciation, mortgage payments, maintenance, rent increases, market returns, and the long-term effects of compound interest. But numbers never tell the full story. There are qualitative factors no spreadsheet can capture: the ability to renovate without permission, the emotional security of owning your space, the discipline forced by a mortgage, or the flexibility you keep by renting and investing the difference. I break down both sides: the hard financial logic and the human realities that ultimately drive this decision. By the end of this video, you’ll understand: • How to model the buy vs. rent decision like an investor • Why renting often wins financially, and when it doesn’t • The hidden costs of owning a home most people ignore • How compound interest changes everything over 20, 30, 50 years • The emotional and lifestyle factors that matter just as much as the math If you’re in your 20s or 30s trying to figure out not just whether to buy, but where to live long-term, and other things, watch this next: https://youtu.be/lU4bIrYkNEY