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Calculators for the largest transaction most people ever make — including the opportunity cost that property comparisons routinely omit.
Financial comparison of renting or buying.
Calculate PITI and PMI.
Return on real estate investment.
Property registration costs.
Buying is usually framed as obviously superior to "throwing money away on rent". That framing omits the largest cost in the comparison: the opportunity cost of the down payment, plus the gap between the EMI and the equivalent rent, both of which could have been invested elsewhere.
A complete comparison also has to include the costs that do not appear in the sale price — stamp duty and registration, brokerage, maintenance, property tax, and the repairs an owner absorbs and a tenant does not. Across a full ownership period these routinely add a substantial fraction to the headline number.
Rental yield is the metric to check before treating property as an investment rather than a home. Gross yield is annual rent divided by property value; net yield subtracts maintenance, tax and vacancy. In many major cities net rental yields sit well below what low-risk fixed income pays, which means the investment case rests almost entirely on price appreciation — a considerably less certain proposition than rent.
None of this argues against buying. A home you intend to live in for decades is as much a lifestyle decision as a financial one. It argues for making that decision with the full arithmetic visible.