The whole-picture cost of living calculator
Cheap rent can be expensive.
The listing shows the rent. It doesn't show the second car, the property taxes, or the 500 hours a year you'll spend commuting. We add those up, with real Walk Score, commute, and tax data, so you can compare two addresses honestly.
Data: Walk Score®, Google Directions, county tax records, AAA driving-cost study
Run your own comparison
Live data · takes about 20 seconds
Four costs, one honest number
Rent is only the first line of the ledger. The other three lines are where a “cheap” address quietly gets expensive, and every formula we use is published, sourced, and adjustable.
See every formula and constant →Housing
Your rent or mortgage, annualized: the only number most calculators look at.
Property tax
The effective local rate applied to your housing cost, from county records.
Cars you actually need
Derived from Transit Score: great transit means zero cars; poor transit means two.
Commute time
Round-trip minutes valued at your hourly rate, over 250 working days.
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The Chicago guide
Where you can skip the car entirely
Every dot is one of Chicago's 85 community areas, plotted at its real coordinates. Color shows how many cars a household there typically needs, derived from its Transit Score. Hover any dot for the name.
Most walkable, by Walk Score®
Your commute has a price tag
Nobody puts it on the listing, but a 35-minute drive is roughly 290 hours a year, seven working weeks of your time. Value it at your own rate and see what it's really worth.
Read the full commute-cost guide →$8,750
of your time, per year
292 hours/yr
at $30/hr · 250 working days
Where the numbers come from
Walk Score®: walk, transit & bike scoresGoogle Directions: drive & transit commute timesCounty records via API Ninjas: effective property tax ratesRentCast: housing market dataAAA: "Your Driving Costs": $12,000/yr per car