Use this when the question is not just “can I buy?” but “what happens if I buy and then move in a few years?” It compares renting with buying over a chosen horizon using mortgage interest, SDLT, maintenance, sale costs and the opportunity cost of tying up your deposit.
Short holding periods punish buyers because the upfront tax, fees and sale costs have less time to be offset by equity build-up and house-price growth.
This page compares unrecovered cost rather than just total cash out. On the buying side it treats mortgage interest, SDLT, fees, maintenance, sale costs and the opportunity cost of the deposit as the main “gone for good” costs, while showing the remaining home equity separately.
This calculator uses England and Northern Ireland SDLT as a first pass. Mortgage rates, rent growth, house-price growth and investment returns are all user inputs, not forecasts.