Skip to main content
Rent v Buy

What's new at Rent v Buy

A dated record of what has changed on this site: new calculators, new state pages, data refreshes, and behind-the-scenes work on the schema and methodology. Newest entries appear first. If something looks wrong or stale, the contact form is the best way to flag it.

  1. Visible byline and one-source freshness date

    Every guide and calculator page now shows a "By Barron Hansen, Founder, Last reviewed [date]" line at the bottom, with the author name linked to /about. The site-wide last-reviewed date is now a single constant that flows into the sitemap, the visible byline, and the Article schema on every page.

  2. Rent vs buy pages for all 50 states plus DC

    Added 51 new state pages at /rent-vs-buy/<state>. Each page works through the rent vs buy math for that state with the state's median listing price, property tax rate, and average rent, and pre-populates the calculator with local defaults. The 12 highest-traffic states have hand-written analysis covering state-specific dynamics (Proposition 13 in California, the mansion tax in New York, Texas property tax mechanics, and so on).

  3. Housing finance glossary launched

    New /glossary page with 40 plain-English definitions for the financial terms used across the calculators and guides: PMI, PITI, LTV, escrow, mansion tax, Proposition 13, Mello-Roos, and more. Each entry links to the calculators and guides where the concept actually shows up.

  4. Improved structured data: Article, HowTo, Speakable

    Article and FAQPage structured data updated across all guides and state pages. Seven procedural guides now emit HowTo schema with step-by-step structure for the rent vs buy decision. Every page that emits an Article also emits a Speakable annotation marking FAQ questions and answers as eligible for voice assistants.

  5. State-level data refresh for 50 states plus DC

    Refreshed propertyTaxRate, annualInsurance, averageRent, annualAppreciation, and stateMarginalRate for all 50 states, DC, and the US national average using the latest published Tax Foundation, Insurance Information Institute, and BLS data. The calculators use these as location-aware defaults.

  6. Pre-launch audit and hardening

    Pre-launch audit completed: removed unused placeholder assets, added the IndexNow key file, switched the sitemap to a static last-modified date, added Cache-Control to the dynamic OG route, and expanded the Content Security Policy for Google AdSense domains.

By Barron Hansen, Founder · Last reviewed