Tool · Property
Rent or buy — and after how many years does buying win?
A foreigner can own a condo (not the land). Enter the unit and your plan and get the break-even year, the all-in annual carrying cost, and a go/no-go for your holding period — with the statutory tax stack and the exit friction made explicit. The tax lines are dated law; the market figures are your own assumptions.
Editorial reference ₱50–150; get your building’s from the HOA
Your assumption — we publish no price index
How are you paying?
For a 10-year hold
Buy
Buying wins by your 10-year exit.
| The statutory stack | Amount | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Documentary stamp tax | ₱90,000 | 1.5% · buyer · NIRC §196 |
| Local transfer tax | ₱45,000 | 0.75% city ceiling · RA 7160 §135 |
| Registration (LRA) | ₱15,000 | ~0.25% indicative · graduated schedule |
| To buy (closing) | ₱150,000 | |
| Exit — capital gains tax | ₱483,810 | 6% · seller · NIRC §24(D), on your projected sale price |
| Year-1 carrying | ₱84,000 | RPT ₱36,000 + dues ₱48,000 |
What this means
Before the maths: a foreigner can own a condo, but RA 4726 §5 caps foreign ownership at 40% of the whole building, and a transfer that breaches the cap is void ab initio. Get the building's current foreign allocation in writing from the condo corporation before you reserve — it is the constraint the peso figures cannot see.
Buying breaks even in year 2: that is when your cumulative cost of owning (₱-589,688 over 10 years) falls at or below the cost of renting (₱3,851,863). You plan to hold 10 years, so buying wins by your exit.
The exit is not free: selling triggers a 6% capital gains tax (₱483,810 at your projected sale price) on the higher of price, assessor FMV, or BIR zonal value, plus a 3–6 month title-transfer process gated by the BIR's Certificate Authorizing Registration. Buying is a multi-year commitment, not a liquid position.
Your year-one carrying cost is about ₱84,000 — real property tax (≈0.6%/yr at the residential assessment ceiling) plus association dues. Dues never stop and can be raised without a statutory cap; RPT can reset on the next general revision (RA 12001).
The tax lines above are statutory and dated. The unit price, the ₱100/sqm dues, the appreciation, the rent and the 7% mortgage rate are YOUR assumptions — LiveInPH publishes no per-sqm condo price table and no dues dataset (no transaction register exists), and there is no published foreigner mortgage rate. Get the price from the developer's pricelist, the dues from the HOA in writing, and the rate from a bank branch, dated.
Methodology, formula + sources
How this is calculated
The tool compares the net cost of buying against the net cost of renting over your holding period, and finds the first year buying's cumulative cost falls at or below renting's — the break-even year. The BUY side is your down payment plus the statutory closing stack (1.5% documentary stamp tax, the 0.75% city transfer tax, ~0.25% registration), plus annual carrying (real property tax at ≈0.6%/yr of value at the residential assessment ceiling, plus association dues, plus mortgage interest if financed), minus the sale proceeds at exit (your projected sale price less any remaining mortgage and the 6% capital gains tax). The RENT side is your monthly rent over the period with your escalation assumption. The transaction and tax rates are dated statutory figures; the unit price, dues, appreciation, rent, and — critically — the mortgage rate are YOUR assumptions, because no per-sqm condo price index, no dues dataset, and no published foreigner mortgage rate exist to read them from.
Formula
netBuyCost(n) = downPayment + closingStack + Σ(RPT + dues + mortgagePayment) − saleProceeds(n)
closingStack = 1.5% DST + 0.75% transfer tax + 0.25% registration
RPT/yr = value × 20% assessment × (2% basic + 1% SEF) ≈ 0.6% × value
saleProceeds(n) = price·(1+appr)^n − remainingMortgage − 6% CGT
netRentCost(n) = Σ_{t=1..n} monthlyRent × 12 × (1 + escalation)^(t−1)
break-even year = smallest n where netBuyCost(n) ≤ netRentCost(n)
buy wins if break-even ≤ your holding period Constants + data sources (each dated)
| Value used | Source | As of |
|---|---|---|
| Documentary stamp tax: 1.5% (buyer) | NIRC §196 (documentary stamp tax on conveyances) | 2026-09 |
| Capital gains tax (exit): 6% (seller), on the higher of price / FMV / zonal | NIRC §24(D); BIR Form 1706 (final CGT, within 30 days of sale) | 2026-09 |
| Local transfer tax: ≤0.75% city / ≤0.5% province | RA 7160 (Local Government Code) §135 | 2026-09 |
| Real property tax: ≈0.6%/yr of value (20% assessment × (2% + 1% SEF)) | RA 7160 §218 (assessment levels), §233 (basic RPT), §235 (SEF) | 2026-09 |
| Foreign ownership cap: 40% per building — breach is void ab initio | RA 4726 (Condominium Act) §5 | 2026-09 |
Worked example (reproduce this by hand)
A ₱6,000,000, 40 sqm unit bought in cash, ₱100/sqm dues, vs ₱28,000/month rent, 3% appreciation and rent escalation, held 10 years.
- Closing stack: 1.5% + 0.75% + 0.25% of ₱6,000,000 = ₱150,000
- Year-1 carrying: RPT ₱36,000 (0.6%) + dues ₱48,000 = ₱84,000
- Exit CGT at the projected 10-year sale price ≈ ₱483,810
- Because ₱28k/month rent far exceeds the ₱7,000/month carrying, buying overtakes renting quickly
→ Break-even in year 2; buying wins by a 10-year hold. Same numbers in code, statute module, and tests.
Assumptions
- Appreciation and rent escalation are YOUR declared assumptions (defaulted to 3%), not our data — LiveInPH publishes no condo price index. The break-even is highly sensitive to them.
- RPT uses the 20% residential assessment ceiling; an LGU may assess lower, so the RPT here is a conservative-high estimate. RA 12001 (2024) may reset market values on the next general revision.
- A cash purchase ignores the opportunity cost of the tied-up capital; a mortgage models interest but the rate is your input (there is no published foreigner rate).
Known limits — what this does not model
- This models a capital-asset RESALE. A developer / pre-selling purchase is an ordinary asset → 12% VAT applies instead of the 6% CGT, and is not modelled here.
- It does not model brokerage commission on sale, the opportunity cost of your down payment, income tax on rental if you let the unit, or special assessments (see the negative result below).
- The registration fee is a graduated LRA bracket schedule; 0.25% is a working approximation, not an exact figure.
Special assessments · a published absence
The dues-increase risk has no number, and that is the finding.
A special assessment is a one-off charge on top of your dues when the reserve fund cannot cover a major repair — a façade repaint, a lift replacement, a fire-safety upgrade, storm damage. RA 4726 §9 lets the declaration of restrictions levy them per unit in proportion to floor area, but it sets no statutory cap on the size of a dues increase or a special assessment, and no percentage vote-threshold. Your building’s master deed and by-laws govern instead, and they differ building to building.
There is no PSA or DHSUD index of special assessments, and no published longitudinal dataset — they live in private condo-corp minutes. The “8–12% then 5–8%” figures that circulate are unsourced. We model no special-assessment line and publish the absence rather than a guess: ask the board for the last three years of assessments before you buy. Full treatment in the condo dues guide.
Why the price and dues are your inputs, not our data
Every other LiveInPH tool reads its figures from a dated ledger. This one takes the unit price, the dues, and the mortgage rate from you, on purpose: there is no public register of condo transaction prices in the Philippines, association dues are the least-published number in the housing market, and no bank publishes a foreigner mortgage rate. We refuse to manufacture a per-sqm price table or a dues dataset from asking prices — that is the exact failure this site exists to avoid — so those bands stay a labelled reference and the panel below stays a documented gap until a real, counted sample exists.
Baseline — limited data
Editorial reference only — dues ₱50–150/sqm/month (Cebu Grand Realty, Jan 2026; Mandani Bay)
This is the baseline reading for a LiveInPH condo price or dues dataset (as of 2026-09). One real period on record — a trend line appears once at least 2 dated periods are collected. We do not back-fill or interpolate intermediate points to make a line look complete; a longitudinal claim is worth exactly the number of periods actually measured.