Cost of Waiting to Buy a House Calculator
See how much more the same Australian property is projected to cost if you buy in a few years instead of now — and how much extra deposit you would need to save to keep up.
Negative rates are allowed — if prices fall, waiting saves you money.
Projected purchase-price difference
$270,580
more for the same property in 5 years
This is the projected difference in purchase price only. It excludes rent you would pay while waiting, mortgage interest you would not yet be paying, and buying and holding costs — any of which can reduce or reverse the real result. The figure is entirely a function of the growth rate you enter.
Projected price in 5 years
$1,070,580
Extra deposit needed
$54,116
How prices have moved historically
- December quarter 2012
- $496,400
- March quarter 2026
- $1,111,100
- Difference
- +$614,700
- Compound growth
- 6.27% p.a.
Mean price of residential dwellings, Australia — ABS series A83728647F, Total Value of Dwellings (cat. 6432.0). View the ABS release. The series begins in the September quarter of 2011, so December 2012 is the first December quarter available — the start date is a constraint of the data, not a chosen one.
These are nominal figures. They exclude inflation and every cost of owning a home, and they describe a mean across the entire national dwelling stock — not a forecast, and not a rate that applies to any individual property.
Why waiting has a price
If property prices rise while you wait, two things move against you at once. The purchase price itself climbs, and the deposit — usually a percentage of that price — climbs with it. Saving hard for another two years can still leave you further from a deposit than when you started, which is the part people rarely model.
The honest caveat is that this only describes the purchase price. Waiting also means paying rent, not paying mortgage interest, and not paying stamp duty, rates, or maintenance yet. Whether waiting leaves you better or worse off depends on all of it together. Use the projected difference above as one input, and if prices in your market are falling, enter a negative growth rate and see what that does.
Frequently asked questions
- How much more will a house cost in 5 years in Australia?
- It depends entirely on the growth rate you assume, which is why this calculator asks you for one rather than picking a single answer. As a worked example, a $800,000 property growing at 6% a year would be projected at about $1,070,000 in five years — roughly $270,000 more, and about $54,000 more for a 20% deposit. Growth rates vary enormously by location, property type, and period, and no rate is guaranteed.
- What does this calculator actually measure?
- The projected difference in purchase price between buying today and buying in a number of years, plus the extra deposit that difference implies. It does not measure whether waiting leaves you better or worse off overall.
- What does it leave out?
- Rent you would pay while waiting, mortgage interest you would not yet be paying, stamp duty and other buying costs, rates, insurance, maintenance, and any change in your borrowing capacity or interest rates. Those cash flows can materially reduce, or entirely reverse, the result shown. Treat the figure as one input to a decision, not the decision.
- What growth rate should I use?
- There is no correct answer, so the calculator offers a conservative, base, and optimistic case rather than a single default. For context, the ABS mean price of Australian residential dwellings grew about 6.3% a year between December quarter 2012 and March quarter 2026. That is a nominal national average across the entire dwelling stock, not a forecast, and not a rate that applies to any particular property.
- Can waiting ever save money?
- Yes. If prices fall, the same property costs less later, and the deposit required falls with it. Enter a negative growth rate and the calculator will show the saving. Prices have fallen over multi-year stretches in various Australian markets, so a calculator that can only ever tell you to buy now is not telling you much.
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