Buy or rent? Ask the internet

People trying to figure out whether they are ready to take the plunge and move from renting to owning – well, those who live in the US, anyway – might benefit from taking a squiz at a new online property site called HotPads.com.

VentureBeat reports that HotPads.com is a service that allows you to find and compare the cost of renting or buying a home or apartment in your preferred city, part of town, or even just street.

You simply pick the area you want and the amount of money you can afford and HotPads comes up with a map displaying available properties, with homes for sale highlighted in red and those for rent in yellow.

You can also play around with different payment options for a home purchase, such as size of down-payment, length of mortgage and interest rate. As you click on each property on the map, a bubble pops up showing pricing details.