Editorial Policy

RentBuyPlanner publishes free tools and plain-language guides about renting, buying, and financing a home. Money decisions are high stakes, so we hold our content to a clear standard. The policy below describes how a page gets made, who is accountable for it, and how we fix things when we get them wrong.

How we research

We start from primary sources rather than secondhand summaries. For US mortgage, closing-cost, and consumer-finance basics, we lean on official and well-established references such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and other government and regulatory bodies. Where a topic depends on long-run market behavior, we use established research on housing and investment returns to set reasonable ranges, not to predict the future.

Our calculators run on standard finance math. Amortization uses the ordinary fixed-payment loan formula; the rent-vs-buy comparison uses an invest-the-difference net-worth model that we document in full on our methodology page. We do not invent formulas, and we do not hide them.

When we choose default assumptions, we err on the side of conservative, middle-of-the-road numbers and we label them as editable starting points, not forecasts or live quotes. Any dollar figures in our guides are illustrative examples, clearly framed as such, so you can see how the math behaves before you enter your own situation.

• Primary and official sources first; reputable research for ranges.
• Standard, transparent finance math you can reproduce by hand.
• Conservative, clearly-labeled default assumptions, never disguised as quotes.
• Illustrative examples separated from facts, so assumptions stay visible.

Review and accuracy

Our content is written and reviewed by the RentBuyPlanner editorial team. Each substantive guide carries a byline and a "last updated" date so you know it is maintained, and our calculators are backed by the openly published model. Where a topic warrants specialist review, we credit the named reviewer on the page.

Accuracy in a finance tool means showing your work. Rather than asking you to trust a black box, we publish the exact model, the formulas, the default assumptions, and a worked example you can check on our methodology page. If a number in a guide and a number in a calculator ever disagree, the methodology page and the live tool are the source of truth, and we treat the discrepancy as a bug to fix.

Updates and corrections

Rates, rules, and market conditions change, so our content is maintained, not frozen. Every page shows a "Last updated" date so you can see how current it is. When we make a meaningful change to the substance of a page, we refresh that date.

We want to hear about mistakes. If you spot an error, a broken calculation, or something that reads as out of date, please tell us through our contact page or email hello@rentbuyplanner.com. We review reports, correct confirmed errors promptly, and update the page date when we do. Clear, factual corrections matter more to us than appearing to have been right the first time.

Independence and advertising

Our guidance is editorially independent from how we make money. RentBuyPlanner runs advertising through Google AdSense, and no advertiser pays for, reviews, or influences the conclusions in our guides or the math in our calculators. The recommendation a tool produces is driven by the numbers you enter, not by who is buying ad space.

We label advertising as advertising so you can tell paid placements apart from our own content. We also use analytics to understand how the site is used, and we describe what we collect and how consent works in our privacy policy.

Today we do not run paid referral or affiliate links. If that ever changes, we will disclose those relationships plainly on the affected pages, and such arrangements will never change the substance of our analysis or the output of a calculator. If a financial product or partner could not survive an honest comparison, we would not let a commercial relationship hide that from you.

Not financial advice

Everything on RentBuyPlanner is general information and educational content. It is not personalized financial, tax, legal, or investment advice, and it does not account for your full circumstances. Your own numbers, goals, local market, and tax situation can change the answer.

Use our tools to understand the tradeoffs and to ask better questions, then confirm any major decision with a qualified professional who can review your specific situation. To see exactly how our flagship model reaches its results, read the methodology page.