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Rent Versus Buy? New tool uses rent ratio to help you decide

Rent Versus Buy? New tool uses rent ratio to help you decide

Author: Sol Nasisi on June 12, 2008 - modified on October 11, 2018

A new tool from HeatMap.com combines rental and housing sales data to provide an indicator on whether it makes sense to rent or to buy.

Back in 2002, when I was convinced there was a housing bubble, it would have been really convenient to have a tool like what HeatMap.com has just introduced. The Rent Ratio Heat Map calculated the ratio of rent over the listing price of homes in an area to determine whether it makes more sense to buy or to sell. HotPads is able to do this because it has a database of over 150,000 rental and 1,500,000 property listings covering most major zip codes.

For a good article on using the Rent Ratio, read the NY Times article.

To see what's happening in a zip code or city or state, check out the Rent ratio heatmaps on HeatMap.com.

Sol Nasisi: Sol Nasisi is the co-founder and a past president of BestCashCow, an online resource for comprehensive bank rate information. In this capacity, he closely followed rate trends for all savings-related and loan products and the impact of rate fluctuations on the economy. He specifically focused on how rates impact consumers' ability to borrow and save. He also has authored a wee