The Cost of Waiting in the Rent-to-Own Service Model
- Charles Smitherman, PhD, JD, MSt, CAE
- Dec 29, 2025
- 3 min read
The Rent-to-Own Review – Insights, History, and Advocacy from The RTO Revolution
Introduction
Most conversations about consumer finance fixate on price. They spend far less time talking about time.
Waiting is usually treated as neutral – an inconvenience at most. But for many working households, waiting carries a real cost. It shows up before any receipt is printed or any interest rate is calculated. And it shapes decisions in ways that standard comparisons fail to capture.
The rent-to-own (RTO) service model exists largely because of this reality. It responds to the cost of waiting, not as an abstract concept, but as a lived constraint.
The Cost of Waiting Is Not Evenly Distributed
Not everyone pays the same price for delay. Households with savings, stable hours, and flexible schedules can absorb inconvenience without cascading consequences. Others cannot.
A refrigerator that stops working midweek does not simply create discomfort. It forces a family into daily grocery trips, higher food costs, and altered routines. A broken washer does not just require patience. It means time at a laundromat, transportation logistics, and hours pulled away from work or rest.
For families living close to the edge, the cost of waiting compounds quickly. It is financial, logistical, and emotional all at once.
Why the Rent-to-Own Service Model Responds Differently
The rent-to-own service model was not designed around long planning horizons. It was designed around interruption.
When early operators described their work, they rarely spoke about affordability in abstract terms. They talked about timing. About whether a solution could arrive before the problem spread. About whether a household could get back to normal without missing a paycheck or rearranging an entire week.
By absorbing service obligations – delivery, repair, replacement – the model shifts the burden of waiting away from the customer. That shift is subtle, but consequential. It changes who carries the risk when something essential fails.
Policy Debates Often Miss the Cost of Waiting
Historical policy debates around rent-to-own focused heavily on structure: Is it credit? Is it a lease? How should cost be disclosed?
Those questions matter, but they often crowd out something more basic. Many lawmakers assumed that households could simply wait for alternative solutions – credit approvals, retail delivery windows, or savings to accumulate. That assumption reflected a particular experience of economic life, not a universal one.
When the cost of waiting is invisible to policymakers, it becomes easy to misjudge the value of immediacy.
The Cost of Waiting Versus the Cost of Access
Critics frequently compare rent-to-own to lower-cost alternatives without accounting for timing. But access delayed is not access denied in theory – it is access denied in practice.
A refrigerator delivered two weeks later does not preserve groceries today. A washer approved but not installed does not free up time this weekend. These gaps matter more than marginal price differences when households lack buffers.
The rent-to-own service model does not eliminate cost. It reallocates it. Instead of pushing delay onto the household, it builds immediacy into the transaction itself.
Continuity as a Rational Choice
When viewed through this lens, rent-to-own decisions appear less puzzling and more practical. Customers are not ignoring price. They are weighing it against the cost of waiting.
Research and testimony captured in The RTO Revolution show that customers understood their agreements. They knew they could return items. They valued predictable payments. Most of all, they valued continuity – the ability to keep daily life from unraveling because of one failed appliance.
Choosing immediacy over delay is not irrational. It is situationally intelligent.
Conclusion
The cost of waiting is rarely itemized, but it is always present. For households navigating volatility, time is often the most constrained resource they have.
The rent-to-own service model persists because it responds to that constraint directly. It treats delay as a real burden rather than a theoretical inconvenience. And it builds a system around showing up before disruption becomes crisis.
Understanding rent-to-own requires understanding this simple truth: waiting is not free. For many families, it is the most expensive option of all.
📢 If you find this analysis useful, please share this post and link to it. Clear discussions of timing and access help improve how these models are understood.
Footnotes
Lendol Calder, Financing the American Dream: A Cultural History of Consumer Credit (Princeton University Press, 1999).
Jonathan Morduch & Rachel Schneider, The Financial Diaries: How American Families Cope in a World of Uncertainty (Princeton University Press, 2017).