Mortgage & Real Estate
A mortgage is the largest number most people ever commit to, and the monthly figure hides several separate costs. These calculators pull them apart — what you borrow, what the rate costs you, and what you pay on top of the loan itself.
Calculators in Mortgage & Real Estate
- Mortgage CalculatorMonthly payment with taxes, insurance and HOACalculate
- Home AffordabilityHow much house your income supportsCalculate
- Down Payment CalculatorWhat to put down, and what each level savesCalculate
- Amortization ScheduleEvery payment on a loan, principal against interestCalculate
- Mortgage PayoffWhen the loan ends, and what ends it soonerCalculate
- PMI CalculatorWhat mortgage insurance costs, and when it endsCalculate
- Extra Mortgage PaymentWhat paying extra removes in interest and yearsCalculate
- Rental PropertyCash flow, cap rate and what the reserves costCalculate
- Cap Rate CalculatorCapitalization rate, and the price a target rate impliesCalculate
- Home Equity LoanA lump sum against your equity, at a fixed paymentCalculate
- HELOC CalculatorDraw-period payment, and what it becomes afterCalculate
- Debt-to-Income RatioBoth ratios a lender checks, and which one bindsCalculate
- Refinance CalculatorBreak-even point on refinancing a mortgageCalculate
- Rent vs BuyWhere buying overtakes renting over timeCalculate
Other categories
- Salary & PaycheckWhat you actually take home, and what an offer is really worth.
- Loans & DebtPayments, payoff order, and the true cost of borrowing.
- Investing & SavingsHow capital grows, and what a contribution changes.
- Auto FinanceFinancing, leasing, and what a car costs to keep.
- Business & AcquisitionWhat a business earns, what it is worth, what it costs to buy.
About mortgage & real estate
A mortgage is the largest number most people ever commit to, and the monthly figure hides at least four separate costs. Principal and interest is the loan. Property tax is set by your county. Insurance is priced on the building. Mortgage insurance is charged by the lender until you have enough equity. Only the first is fixed by your rate, and on many homes the other three together rival it.
That matters because almost every mortgage decision is a trade between the monthly figure and the lifetime cost, and they usually move in opposite directions. A longer term lowers the payment and raises the total. A smaller deposit gets you in sooner and adds mortgage insurance until you reach 78% loan-to-value. Refinancing into a fresh thirty-year term almost always lowers the payment and frequently raises the interest, because the clock resets.
These calculators separate those figures rather than collapsing them into one number. Every page shows the formula it used and states what it assumed, because the assumptions are where two calculators quoting the same loan end up disagreeing.
What goes wrong here
Each of these costs real money, and each is avoidable once it is named.
Budgeting from the payment instead of the whole cost
A payment quoted without taxes and insurance can understate the real monthly cost by a third or more. Lenders qualify you on the full housing figure, so a budget built on principal and interest alone is a budget that fails at underwriting.
Treating 20% down as a requirement
It is not one. Conventional loans go to 3%, FHA to 3.5%, and VA and USDA can require nothing. What 20% buys is the removal of mortgage insurance — a real saving, but a different thing from a minimum.
Refinancing on the rate alone
What decides a refinance is the break-even month against how long you will stay, not how far the rate fell. Sell before break-even and it lost money however good the rate looked.
Ignoring what an extra payment does
Every extra dollar goes straight against the principal and cancels all the future interest that dollar would have accrued. On a thirty-year loan the effect is several times the money put in.
Questions people ask
Lenders work from two ratios: housing costs against gross income, and total debt against gross income — commonly 28% and 36% on conventional loans, though they vary. Because property tax and insurance scale with the price and mortgage insurance appears below 20% down, the answer cannot be worked out by simple division. The Home Affordability calculator solves it directly.
Under the Homeowners Protection Act, 12 U.S.C. § 4902(b), it terminates automatically when the balance reaches 78% of the original value, and you can request cancellation at 80%. It is a temporary cost, not a permanent one, which is worth knowing before delaying a purchase to avoid it.
It is cheaper and less comfortable. A 15-year term costs far less interest and demands a much higher payment. There is no single right answer — it is a trade between monthly room and lifetime cost, and the comparison tables on each page price it on your own numbers.