When is it actually worth buying equipment instead of renting?
Deciding whether to buy or rent rarely used equipment comes down to balancing labor savings and convenience against storage and transport hassles. A machine that only sees a few jobs a year can still make financial sense if it avoids constant rental pickup and availability issues, but unknowns often make it difficult to know when to pull the trigger.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Using a cost threshold rule where buying is justified if the rental cost exceeds 30 percent of the machine price
- 2Renting equipment on a job-by-job basis
- 3Renting out owned specialized equipment to others when not in use
- 4Continuing to save money for a larger down payment
- 5Switching career fields to eventually increase income
- 6Renting a house or duplex instead of a single-family home or apartment
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“So here’s my question, is it realistic/smart for us to try buying a house instead of renting based on our info?”source ↗
“Neither of us have ever done this before so there’s a lot of unknowns, that’s why I wanted to ask here before wasting a financial advisors time.”source ↗
“I appreciate the info! Everyone’s kinda saying the same thing, we simply aren’t ready.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 39Is it a smart idea to buy a new car right now?
- 2Is buying a cheap mobile home better than renting a house?
- 16Should I buy property or keep my money invested?
- 7Should I sell my farmland or keep renting it out?
- 8Should we renovate our aging home or buy a new construction house?
- 7Is a luxury home upgrade worth giving up financial flexibility?