$50,000 in 2007: rent or buy?
$50,000, from January 2007 to April 2026. Rented and invested: $1,014,064. Bought a home: $339,387.
$50,000 in January 2007, put into a home and into the market. The home line is Custom data, the market line is a symbol. Two markers on the timeline. Invest mode, 9:16, rendered in the browser.
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Caption as posted
Does buying a home ALWAYS build more wealth than renting? In January 2007, at the top of the largest housing bubble in American history, a buyer put $50,000 down on a $250,000 home and financed the rest at 6.3%. A renter leased the same house, invested the same $50,000, and put every dollar of the monthly difference into an S&P 500 index fund. Same starting capital. Same housing budget. Every month for 19 years. By April 2026: 🏡 Homeowner’s equity: $339,387 📈 Renter’s portfolio: $1,014,064 🏆 Difference: $674,677 The house did its job. It nearly doubled, from $250,000 to $456,000. What it could not do was outrun its own costs. The owner paid $345,000 that never came back totaling $202,000 in mortgage interest, then property tax, insurance, and the 1% a year a house quietly demands just to stay standing. The renter paid rent and nothing else. The difference went into the market, which returned 7.25x over the same window. Housing returned 1.82x. Two moments decided it. In 2008, the crash took the house with it. Within three years the down payment was effectively gone, equity fell to near zero while the mortgage sat exactly where it started. The renter owed nobody anything.
In March 2020, the market fell by a third in five weeks. The renter’s purchase went in that month like every other month. It was one of the best months of the entire 19 years to be buying.
Renting was never throwing money away. It was just harder to see.
Important: this is only one timeframe, one country, one outcome. This is also before tax so the owner’s gain is exempt under §121, the renter’s is not. Assumes the difference is actually invested every month.
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📊 Sources: Case-Shiller US National Home Price Index + S&P 500 Total Return, Jan 2007–Apr 2026. $250k median home, 20% down, 6.3% 30-yr fixed, no refinancing; rent set at 1/18 of home value per year and indexed to it; monthly cost difference dollar-cost-averaged.
⚠️ General information, not investment advice. Past performance is not a guide to future results.
The house felt like the safer choice and ended $674,677 behind. Renting only wins here if the difference goes into the market and stays there. Most of the gap opens after 2020.
| Rented and invested | Bought a home | |
|---|---|---|
| Ended at | $1,014,064 | $339,387 |
Questions
Does this account for rent?
No. The chart compares $50,000 put into a home with $50,000 put into the market. Rent paid over the period is not subtracted, and neither are the costs of owning.
Why is the home line lower than house prices near me?
It is one price series entered in the editor. Housing is local, so your market may have run further or less far than this line.
Methodology
Figures are the ones the reel ends on, in April 2026. The market line is Yahoo Finance daily closes. The home line is a custom price series entered in the editor, not market data, and it excludes property tax, maintenance, insurance and transaction costs. Rent paid is not deducted from the invested line. Past performance is not a guide to future results. This page is general information, not investment advice.
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