Compare renting and buying over time.
Cheaper option
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Net cost of buying
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Net cost of renting
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Your breakdown
Updates live as you type| Buying, over 10 years | Amount |
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The decision is really about time and price growth
Renting versus buying in Hong Kong is not a moral question, it is an arithmetic one that turns on two variables above all others: how long you will stay, and how fast prices move. Buying loads its costs at the front, chiefly stamp duty, then drips out rates, government rent and mortgage interest each year, while quietly building a capital gain if prices rise. Renting starts cheap and stays flexible but builds nothing. This calculator nets all of that into a single cost-of-buying figure and a cost-of-renting figure over your chosen horizon, so the comparison is apples to apples rather than monthly-payment to monthly-payment.
What goes into each side
On the buying side the tool adds ad valorem stamp duty on the purchase, an approximation of total mortgage interest, and rates plus government rent across the years, then subtracts the capital appreciation on the property. On the renting side it sums the rent paid and adds an opportunity cost on the deposit you did not tie up, assuming you could have earned a modest return on it instead. The stamp duty figure uses the post-2024 ad valorem scale, after the demand-side duties were abolished. Note one boundary quirk: a price of exactly $9,000,000 falls in the 3 percent stamp-duty band the tool applies, not the higher band that begins just above it.
A $9 million flat against $22,000 rent over ten years
Take the default scenario: buy at $9,000,000 with a 30 percent deposit and a 3.5 percent mortgage rate, or rent the equivalent home for $22,000 a month, over ten years, with 2 percent annual appreciation. On these assumptions the calculator produces the figures below.
Buying wins decisively here, and the reason is the appreciation gain plus the equity that rent never builds. Shorten the horizon or flatten the price growth and the gap narrows fast, which is the whole point of stress-testing it.
Treat the output as a starting point, not a verdict
The model is deliberately simple. It estimates mortgage interest as the loan multiplied by the rate and the number of years, which overstates interest somewhat because it ignores the falling balance as you repay principal. It applies the opportunity cost only to the deposit, not to the monthly cash-flow difference between owning and renting. And it nets appreciation straight off the cost rather than discounting future money to today. Each of those is a defensible shortcut, but together they mean the figure is directional, not a precise net present value. Hong Kong charges no capital gains tax on a future sale, which genuinely strengthens the buying case here, since the appreciation gain is yours to keep.
The most common mistake is to run it once at optimistic appreciation and treat the answer as settled. Run it at zero growth and at a higher mortgage rate too. If buying still wins across a range, the decision is robust; if it flips, you have learned that your answer depends on a forecast nobody can guarantee.
Does the calculator account for the deposit I tie up when buying?
It accounts for it on the renting side, by adding an opportunity cost on the deposit you would not have locked into a property if you rented. On the buying side the deposit becomes equity rather than a cost, and the appreciation is calculated on the full property value, so the benefit of the deposit shows up through the capital gain.
Why does buying look cheaper than renting over ten years?
Because the model credits buying with the full capital appreciation on the property and charges renting the entire rent paid with nothing to show for it. At 2 percent annual growth over a decade the appreciation gain is large enough to offset most of the interest and duty, so the net cost of buying falls well below the rent total.