Zillow

Rent vs Buy in 2026: Run Your Own Numbers with Zillow Data and AI

Skip the hot takes. Zillow publishes its home value (ZHVI) and rent (ZORI) indexes as free CSV downloads, and a chatbot can turn them into your own price-to-rent ratio and monthly cost gap in five minutes. Nationally the math is close: a typical $370,320 home vs $2,000 average rent works out to a ratio around 15, right in the gray zone.