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Should I Wait to Buy?

The wait-or-buy decision is rarely as one-sided as headline-rate framing suggests. This tool walks through the assumptions and runs the math both ways — including the rent you'll pay during the wait.

What it does.

Headlines about rate moves push buyers either to "lock in now" or "wait it out." Both framings ignore the cost of the wait — usually rent — and the uncertainty in the assumptions. This tool surfaces both, runs the math, and tells you when the answer is genuinely close vs decisively one direction.

Sample interaction · Should I Wait to Buy?
Should I buy now or wait 12 months? I'm in Frisco, looking at $475K homes, have $80K saved.
Setting up Buy Now vs Wait. Need three assumptions: (a) where do you think prices go in 12 months — flat, +3%, +5%, or down? (b) where do you think rates go — flat 6.75%, down to 6.25%, down to 5.75%? (c) what's your current rent?
Prices flat. Rates probably down to around 6%. Rent is $2,400.
Buy Now: Same home at $475K, 6.75% rate. True monthly $3,260. Total cost over 5 years (incl. closing): ~$214,000.
Wait 12 months: $475K home, 6% rate. True monthly $3,015. Total cost over the same 5-year horizon, starting 12 months later but paying $2,400 rent in the meantime: ~$209,000.
Wait wins by about $5,000 — but barely. The decision is closer than rate-drop framing suggests, because you pay rent during the wait. If rates only fall to 6.4%, buying now wins. If your rent rises faster than expected, buying now wins. The honest answer here is 'roughly a wash, lean toward buying when you find the right home.'
Underlying tool

The math runs in the Buy Now vs Wait calculator.

This AI tool sits on top of a real calculator. The numbers it shows you come from deterministic math, not from a language model's pattern matching. While the AI version is in development, the underlying calculator is fully live — you can run the same math today by clicking through.

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While we build

The calculator layer is live and complete.

Every AI tool layers on top of an existing calculator. The fastest path to an answer today is to use the calculator directly.

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