It now takes an average of 15 years to break even on a home compared to renting — and nearly 50 years in these markets

To buy or not to buy? That is the question for Americans deciding whether their best real estate investment lies in purchasing a home or renting.

A new Zillow analysis makes that decision tougher, reporting that it takes the average new homeowner around 15 years "to break even on the purchase relative to renting."

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"There are two clocks ticking," Amanda Pendleton, Zillow's Home Trends Expert, told Moneywise. "The first clock is how long it takes to save for a down payment, driven by home prices relative to local incomes. The second is how long you need to own before buying beats renting financially."

According to Zillow's analysis, an average U.S. household requires eight-and-a-half years to save for a 20% down payment on a "typical single-family home," with a little over six years "before owning comes out ahead financially compared to renting a single-family home."

"Where rents are cheap, like Austin, buying has more ground to make up," Pendleton said. "Where rents are expensive, like Miami, owning starts looking good faster."

She added that areas with high home prices leave buyers "with a larger financial deficit, requiring more time to recover." And as Zillow found, the highest-priced markets could leave buyers waiting nearly 50 years to break even.

Where you live could make or break the math

According to the Zillow report, San Jose boasts the longest national break-even wait time for homeowners, at 49.2 years, with San Francisco (46.9 years), San Diego (40.4 years) and Los Angeles (37.7 years) close behind. Pittsburgh (11.1 years), Detroit (11.4 years), Indianapolis (11.5 years) and Cincinnati (12.2 years) have the shortest times.

Pendleton pointed to the housing shortage as a culprit, saying the U.S. "is short 4.7 million homes and the places with the biggest deficits tend to have the longest break-even timelines."

The median price for a single-family existing home rose 1.5% year-over-year in the second quarter of 2026 to $434,900, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR). And the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate recently hit 6.89% — its highest since last June.