Six months ago my boss sent me an interactive calculator that the New York Times created to help people decide whether it’s a better financial decision to buy a home or simply rent one. He shared the calculator with me because, at the time, we were looking for interesting ways to visualize data and relate it back to our work at Software Advice where we review enterprise software systems and report on enterprise tech trends. More on that in a bit.
Although I wasn’t in the market to do either, I found myself adjusting values and playing around with the calculator just to see how long I’d have to rent at my current rate to make purchasing a home worthwhile. In case you haven’t seen the calculator yet, here’s a screenshot of what it looks like.