EVER get frustrated with the limitations of the average rent or buy online calculator which can't take into account your skills as an armchair economist ? Well MyHome.iehas a new Rent or Buy calculator that allows you to either do the most basic calculation or to put your economist's hat on and predict 10 years into the future.

The aim is to help prospective first time buyers compare the ongoing costs of renting with those of purchasing a house and servicing a mortgage.

If you aren’t feeling confident about predicting house prices and rental trends until 2022, at a basic level you can enter the price of a property and the rental costs for one year and the calculator will produce a result.

The calculator is designed to help people who are thinking about purchasing now, people who want to wait five years and people who plan to wait 10 years .

According to Karl Deeter from Irish Mortgage Brokers who helped develop the calculator in conjuction with myhome.ie, the frustration with many calculators like this is that they are based upon the creator's view of the future. "We took the opposite view and put the consumer in the drivers' seat so that they can make calculations based on what they believe rather than what anybody else thinks."

At least then if you get it wrong, you only have yourself to blame.