Sell or Keep the House?
Assumptions on sliders · method reviewed September 7, 2026
Compares staying in your house with selling it and renting, year by year, at the costs and returns you expect. AboutLess
In plain words. A paid-off house still costs money every year in taxes, insurance, and repairs, and the money tied up in it earns nothing you can spend. Selling costs several percent at closing, maybe some tax on the profit, and then rent every year, but the money from the sale can be invested. This tool runs both paths forward for as many years as you choose and shows what you would have at the end of each.
Why it matters. It is the largest financial decision of many retirements, and it is usually made on feeling. A number for the money side lets the feeling be weighed against something.
An example. A paid-off $800,000 house costing $20,000 a year to carry and rising 3 percent a year, against selling for about $752,000 after costs, investing at 5 percent, and paying $36,000 a year in rent: after ten years, keeping leaves about $811,000 and selling about $749,000.
Where it stops. Every input is an assumption, and the appreciation, the return, and the rent decide the answer. It ignores income tax on the investment returns, moving costs, and the possibility that either the house or the market does something unexpected. The reason to stay or go is often not in the arithmetic at all. Everything it leaves out.
Your best estimate of what it would sell for now.
This is the basis, the starting point for figuring any tax on the gain when you sell.
- Net cost of owning in the first year
- $36,000
- Property tax, insurance, and upkeep, plus the return the equity could have earned, minus the rise in value
- Net cost of renting in the first year
- $-1,600
- Rent minus what the sale money earns
- Cash in hand if you sold today
- $752,000
- After 6% selling costs and no tax on the gain
Three assumptions decide the answer. They are how fast the house gains value, what the sale money earns, and what rent costs. Move any of them and the lines cross somewhere else, which is why they are sliders. The tax on the sale is often nothing, because the home-sale exclusion covers the gain. The money question is usually the yearly costs and the equity, not the tax.
This is an assumption tool, not a rule, and every input is yours to set. It assumes selling costs of 6 percent, a 15 percent tax rate on any gain above the home-sale exclusion, no income tax on the investment returns, no moving costs, no change in rent or yearly costs beyond the rates you entered, and no mortgage paydown. Method reviewed September 7, 2026. Hypothetical; educational, not advice.
This is a simplified model, not your actual tax return or plan. It only knows what you type in, leaves out rules that may apply to you, and cannot weigh the other facts and trade-offs a real decision depends on. Before you act, talk with a professional who knows your whole situation.
Educational only, not investment, tax, or legal advice. Results are hypothetical estimates that vary with each use and over time and are not guaranteed accurate or complete. Using this tool creates no client relationship with Considerate Capital, and the site that linked here is not affiliated with it. By using it you agree to the tool terms.