Every NYC renter weighing the suburbs runs some version of the same calculation, and most run it wrong in the same two ways: they compare rent to a mortgage payment (ignoring the other half of suburban carrying costs), or they compare cash flows only (ignoring the offsets that favor buying). This article is the worksheet we wish everyone used — every line, both directions, with the verification notes attached.
One framing note: this is a planning framework with illustrative figures, not financial advice. Mortgage rates, tax rules, and fares move; your accountant, lender, and attorney own the precise numbers.
The Westchester side: six lines, not one
1. Mortgage (principal + interest). The only line most people model. For scale: at an illustrative 6.5% 30-year rate, each $100,000 borrowed costs about $632/month — so an $850K purchase with 20% down ($680K loan) runs roughly $4,300/month. Rerun this at the rate your lender actually quotes; small rate moves change real money here.
2. Property taxes. The line NYC renters underestimate most. Westchester single-family bills commonly run from the mid-teens to $40,000+ per year depending on town and district — $1,200 to $3,500+ per month. The bill is knowable in advance for any specific house: pull it and strip the seller's exemptions.
3. Commuting. Monthly Metro-North passes from central Westchester run in the low-to-mid hundreds (fares rose in early 2026 — verify with the MTA), plus station parking, times the number of commuters in the household.
4. Cars. The structural add. Most Westchester households need at least one car; many need two. Payment or depreciation, insurance, fuel, and maintenance commonly total $600-$1,000+ per month per car — a line that simply doesn't exist for most NYC renters.
5. House operations. Heat (oil or gas for a whole house), electricity, water/sewer or septic service, landscaping, snow removal. Budget several hundred a month, seasonal and house-specific.
6. Maintenance reserve. Westchester's housing stock is frequently 60-100 years old. A planning reserve of 1-2% of home value per year ($700-$1,400/month on an $850K house) won't be spent evenly — it arrives as roofs, boilers, and drainage projects — but over a decade it is real.
Illustrative total for an $850K purchase in a mid-tax town: roughly $7,500-$9,500/month cash cost all-in, before offsets.
The NYC side: rent plus the lines you'd shed
Family-sized NYC apartments — the true comparison set for a Westchester house — commonly rent in the $5,000-$8,000+ range in Manhattan and the brownstone-belt neighborhoods, less further out (verify current asks in your own neighborhood; this market moves). Add what you actually pay today for parking, storage, and laundry, and — for the honest version — what you pay or would pay for private school or test-prep alternatives if the school question is part of why you're moving. For many families that last line is the entire decision.
The offsets: where buying claws back
NYC resident income tax disappears. Move out of the five boroughs and the city's roughly 3-3.9% resident income tax goes with you. For a household with $300K of taxable income, that is on the order of $9,000-$11,000 a year — $750-$900 a month of offset. Model your actual number with an accountant.
Principal paydown is forced savings. In the early years of the illustrative $680K loan above, roughly $700-$900 of each month's payment retires principal. It is not spendable, but it is not gone — net cost runs that much below cash cost.
Tax deductions may help — verify currency. Mortgage interest and property taxes (SALT) are potentially deductible for itemizers, and federal legislation in 2025 raised the SALT deduction cap substantially, subject to income-based limits. This materially affects high-tax-county math, and it is exactly the kind of rule that changes — confirm the current treatment for your bracket with a tax professional before counting it.
And the unpriced asset: strong public school districts, which many buyers would otherwise approximate with five-figure private tuition per child. Whether that belongs in your worksheet is a family question, but leaving it out entirely is how renters talk themselves out of moves they actually want.
A worked illustration
Household: two adults, $300K taxable income, one commuter, currently in a $6,000/month two-bedroom, considering an $850K house with a $22,000 tax bill in a town like Tuckahoe or Croton-on-Hudson:
| Line | NYC renting | Westchester owning |
|---|---|---|
| Rent / Mortgage (20% down, illustrative 6.5%) | $6,000 | ~$4,300 |
| Property taxes | — | ~$1,830 |
| Commute (pass + parking) | ~$130 transit | ~$400 |
| Cars | — | ~$800 (one car) |
| Operations + maintenance reserve | — | ~$1,200 |
| Cash total | ~$6,130 | ~$8,530 |
| NYC income tax offset | — | ~-$830 |
| Principal paydown (net-cost view) | — | ~-$800 |
| Net comparison | ~$6,130 | ~$6,900 |
Cash cost: about $2,400/month more to own. Net of offsets: roughly $800 — for a house, a yard, and a district. Move any input — a bigger NYC rent, a lower-tax town from the value rankings, a second car, a different rate — and the gap moves with it. That is the point of the worksheet: it is your inputs that decide, not a headline.
How to run it for real
- Pick 2-3 candidate towns from what your budget buys and pull real tax bills from real listings.
- Get a real rate quote and recompute line one.
- Have an accountant put numbers on the city-tax and deduction lines.
- Stress-test: same worksheet with a rate bump, a roof replacement, and one more car. If the move survives the stress case, it's a budget, not a hope.
When your worksheet lands in the ambiguous middle — most do — the deciding inputs are usually town-specific. Send us the scenario and we'll point you at the data for the towns that fit it.