What do I need to use Rent vs Buy?

Home price; Down payment %, mortgage rate, term; How long they expect to stay; Growth assumptions.

Is Rent vs Buy free to use?

Yes — run it free in the browser playground (no API key needed for the sponsored trial, or bring any provider key), or install it into Claude Code, Cursor, ChatGPT and more via npx pm-claude-skills. MIT-licensed and open source.

Rent vs Buy

Q: How do I know the Rent vs Buy output is good?

The skill verifies itself against its own quality checks: The renter-invests-the-difference assumption is stated explicitly; Selling costs are inside the owner's net position at every horizon; The breakeven year is compared against how long the user expects to stay; At least one sensitivity note (appreciation or investment return varied).

🔵 Stable🕐 updated 2026-07-17 🔷 SkillSpec L3 ⚙ ships an executable helper pm-calculators

Model rent-vs-buy honestly — year-by-year net position for both paths including the assumption everyone drops (the renter invests the difference), with a breakeven horizon instead of a verdict. Use when asked should I rent or buy, does buying beat renting in my city, when does buying break even, or run the rent-vs-buy numbers. Produces the year-by-year comparison table, the breakeven year, the assumption list with defaults labeled, and the not-modeled list.

▶ Run it free — no key needed 📝 Grade your existing draft View SKILL.md ↗

What to give it

▸Home price — and comparable monthly rent — same home, same neighborhood; comparing a condo rent to a house purchase is the classic apples-to-oranges error

▸Down payment %, mortgage rate, term — defaults 20% / 6.5% / 30yr, labeled

▸How long they expect to stay — the single most decision-relevant input

▸Growth assumptions — appreciation, rent growth, investment return (defaults 3/3/5%, labeled)

✅ The bar it holds itself to

Every skill in this library self-verifies — these are this skill's own quality checks, straight from its definition.

✓The renter-invests-the-difference assumption is stated explicitly

✓Selling costs are inside the owner's net position at every horizon

✓The breakeven year is compared against how long the user expects to stay

✓At least one sensitivity note (appreciation or investment return varied)

✓The disclaimer line appears in the artifact

⚠️ What it refuses to do

Do not declare a universal winner — the deliverable is a breakeven horizon

Do not count rent as "thrown away" without counting interest, tax, and maintenance the same way

Do not compare non-comparable homes (rent a 1BR vs buy a 3BR)

Do not model jurisdiction-specific tax benefits — name them as unmodeled instead

Do not let the math silently overrule stated non-financial priorities — surface the tension

Install

npx pm-claude-skills add --agent claude   # or codex · cursor · gemini · hermes
# or one-line MCP (every skill, any client):
claude mcp add pm-skills -- npx -y pm-claude-skills-mcp

Related skills

🔌 Embed this skill

Drop this on your blog, docs, or site — it renders a "Run this skill" card:

<div data-pm-skill="rent-vs-buy"></div>
<script src="https://mohitagw15856.github.io/pm-claude-skills/embed.js" async></script>

💬 Discussion

Rent vs Buy is one of 599 open-source professional AI agent skills — all SkillSpec L3. Try them all in the browser · ⭐ Star on GitHub · Browse the full catalog