Should you buy or rent your next home?

Compare the financial trade-off and lifestyle factors that matter to you.

Property

Start with the home you have in mind

These choices set the starting estimates. You can override these if you have more precise data.

A

Where are you looking to live?

B

What type of property are you considering?

Property-type price adjustment: ooba property-price guidance. Townhouse and rent adjustments are clearly marked modelling assumptions.

Financial picture

What would buying and renting cost?

Answer what you know. Difficult figures start with editable South African reference values.

2

What is the expected purchase price?

R

A local listing you would genuinely consider is better than the default.

3

What would a comparable property cost to rent per month?

R / month

The default starts from a provincial transaction average, then applies a modest property-type assumption.

1

How long do you expect to live in the property?

High influence

To simplify calculations, the average of the period is taken.

4

How much deposit would you put down?

High influence
5

What mortgage interest rate do you expect?

Your actual bank offer may be above or below prime.

Reference: 10.50% prime lending rate — South African Reserve Bank, 11 Sep 2026.

6

What mortgage term would you use?

7

What are the ongoing ownership costs?

Estimated total—

These are modelling estimates, not municipal quotations. Replace them with your municipality, insurer and body-corporate/estate figures when available.

Maintenance and levy defaults vary by property type. Rates and insurance are transparent prototype assumptions; see .

8

What purchase and selling costs should be assumed?

Transfer duty—Calculated automatically from the purchase price.

Transfer duty: SARS transfer-duty rates, rates effective 1 Apr 2026. Other purchase/selling percentages remain editable assumptions.

9

What annual property-price growth should be assumed?


Official recent context: Stats SA Residential Property Price Index, April 2026.

Advanced assumptionsQuestion 10 and growth/inflation details
10

What return could alternative savings earn?

This represents the opportunity cost of using your deposit and other cash to buy instead of investing it. Keep the default if you do not have a view.

Lifestyle

What matters beyond the numbers?

These preferences are kept separate from the financial model so you can see whether the two perspectives agree.

11

How important is flexibility to move?

Not importantNeutralVery important
12

How certain are you that you will remain in the same area?

Very uncertainNeutralVery certain
13

How stable and predictable is your income?

UncertainNeutralVery stable
14

How important is being able to modify and personalise your home?

Not importantNeutralVery important
15

How important is avoiding responsibility for maintenance and repairs?

Not importantNeutralVery important
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Results

Your buy-versus-rent picture

Financial outcome and lifestyle fit are deliberately shown as separate signals.

Calculating…

—

—

Modelled difference — at your selected time horizon
Financial comparison—
Buy
—
Rent
—

—

Lifestyle alignment—
Rent
Buy

—

What is driving the result?
This is a decision aid, not financial advice.

Small changes in interest rates, actual property price, rent, growth, maintenance and transaction costs can drastically change the result. Replace estimates with real quotations and comparable listings before making a decision.

Transparency

Data & assumptions

Purchase-price starting points

Major-metro base purchase prices use published ooba averages. Midrand uses Property24's 2026 area trend. These are broad starting points, not valuations.

ooba metro purchase-price averages ↗
Property24 Midrand trend ↗

Property-type adjustment

ooba notes that sectional-title homes can be materially cheaper than comparable freehold properties. The prototype therefore applies transparent broad factors: house 1.10×, townhouse 0.88×, apartment 0.75×, unsure 1.00× against the city base. The townhouse factor is a modelling assumption rather than a published city-level statistic.

ooba property-price guidance ↗

Rent starting points

Rent defaults use PayProp Q1 2026 provincial average transaction rents, then a modest transparent property-type factor: house 1.05×, townhouse 1.00×, apartment 0.95×, unsure 1.00×. The type factor is a modelling assumption because the source is provincial rather than city-and-type specific.

PayProp Rental Index ↗

Mortgage reference

The default rate is the South African prime lending reference rate of 10.50% as at 11 September 2026. Your actual home-loan offer can differ.

South African Reserve Bank current market rates ↗

Transfer duty

Transfer duty is calculated directly from the SARS rates effective from 1 April 2026.

SARS transfer-duty rates ↗

Property-price growth context

The latest metro growth shown beside Question 9 comes from Stats SA's April 2026 Residential Property Price Index. The long-term rate used in the model is deliberately lower and remains editable; one recent year is not treated as a forecast.

Stats SA RPPI April 2026 ↗

Ownership-cost assumptions

Rates/property tax are modelled at 0.45% of purchase price per year and insurance at 0.30% per year. Maintenance defaults vary by property type (1.0% house, 0.75% townhouse, 0.5% apartment, 0.75% unsure). Levies start at R0/R1,800/R2,200/R1,000 per month respectively. These are intentionally visible prototype assumptions and should be replaced with real local figures.

What this tool does not know

It does not know the exact suburb, condition of a property, municipal valuation, insurance profile, bank pricing, body-corporate budget, future tax changes or future market performance. Defaults are there to make the calculator usable—not to imply precision.