House Affordability Calculator
How much house you can afford, as a realistic range rather than one number
Quick Tips
- The maximum a lender approves is not the amount you should spend — budget for maintenance at 1-2% of the home value a year.
- Crossing 20% down removes PMI, which instantly buys you more house for the same monthly payment.
- Closing costs of 2-5% of the price are paid on top of the down payment, so keep them out of your down payment figure.
Maximum Home Price
Your Affordability Range
| Component | Monthly | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Principal & interest | $1,564.89 | 74.5% |
| Property tax | $281.95 | 13.4% |
| Home insurance | $150.00 | 7.1% |
| HOA fees | $0.00 | 0.0% |
| PMI | $103.16 | 4.9% |
| Total monthly payment | $2,100.00 | 100% |
The same income, the same down payment, only the interest rate moves. This is what a half point is worth in purchasing power.
| Interest Rate | Max Home Price | Monthly Payment | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5.50% | $330,281 | $2,100.00 | +$22,698 |
| 6.00% | $318,568 | $2,100.00 | +$10,985 |
| 6.50% Your rate | $307,583 | $2,100.00 | — |
| 7.00% | $300,000 | $2,021.73 | −$7,583 |
| 7.50% | $299,606 | $2,100.00 | −$7,976 |
Last updated: August 21, 2026
House Affordability Calculator: The Price Range You Can Actually Afford
There is no single number that answers "how much house can I afford". There is a band, and where you land inside it is a choice about how much of your paycheck you are willing to hand over every month for the next few decades. That is why this calculator gives you three figures instead of one: a conservative price that leaves genuine breathing room, a moderate price built on standard lending guidelines, and an aggressive price near the outer edge of what an underwriter would sign off on.
Example: a household earning $90,000 a year with $500 of monthly debt payments and $60,000 saved qualifies for roughly $307,000 at 6.5% over 30 years under conventional 28/36 guidelines. Tighten the ratio and the same household is looking at homes around $239,000; stretch it and $357,000 comes into range. All three are defensible. Only one of them will still feel comfortable when the water heater fails.
Every figure on this page includes the whole monthly cost of ownership — principal, interest, property tax, homeowners insurance, HOA dues and mortgage insurance — because that is the number that has to fit inside your budget, not the principal and interest that headline rates advertise.
How Lenders Decide What You Can Borrow
Underwriting runs on two debt-to-income ratios, and your budget is whichever one binds first.
Max housing payment = min( income ÷ 12 × front-end %, income ÷ 12 × back-end % − monthly debts )
- Front-end ratio — housing payment as a share of gross monthly income. Conventional loans use 28%.
- Back-end ratio — housing plus car loans, student loans, card minimums and support payments, as a share of gross monthly income. Conventional loans use 36%.
- FHA is more permissive at 31/43 and allows 3.5% down, but carries its own mortgage insurance premium.
- VA loans skip the front-end ratio entirely, applying a 41% back-end guideline plus a residual income test.
On $90,000 of income the front-end cap is $2,100 a month and the back-end cap is $2,700 less your $500 of existing debts, or $2,200. The lower of the two — $2,100 — is your real ceiling. Notice what this means: paying off a car loan does not always raise your budget. If the front-end ratio is already binding, clearing debt changes nothing until you also earn more.
What Your Monthly Payment Really Contains
The payment that has to fit inside those ratios is not just the loan. Lenders call the full package PITI, and PMI and HOA dues ride along with it:
- Principal and interest — the loan itself, typically 70-80% of the payment.
- Property tax — charged as a percentage of the home's assessed value, so it grows with the price of the house you buy. A move from a 0.5% county to a 2.2% county can cost you more than 10% of your purchasing power on identical income.
- Homeowners insurance — a fixed annual premium, spread monthly.
- PMI — private mortgage insurance, required below 20% down and modelled here at 0.5% of the loan balance a year. It protects the lender, not you, and can be cancelled on conventional loans once you reach 80% loan-to-value.
- HOA dues — non-negotiable if the property has them, and lenders count them in full.
Property tax and PMI both scale with the price you can afford, which in turn depends on how much payment is left after tax and PMI. That circularity is real, and a single-pass calculation overstates affordability by several percent. This calculator iterates until the price is consistent with its own carrying costs.
The Three Levers That Move Your Number
Down Payment
Works twice. Every dollar is a dollar you are not borrowing, and crossing 20% removes PMI entirely, freeing up part of the monthly budget to support a larger loan. The affordability curve has a visible kink right at that line — watch the slider.
Interest Rate
A full point typically moves purchasing power by 8-10% on a 30-year loan. The rate sensitivity table shows the exact figures for your inputs, which is why locking a rate before you shop matters more than most buyers expect.
Existing Debts
Only bite through the back-end ratio. When back-end is the binding constraint, every $100 of minimum payments cleared is roughly $100 of housing payment released — often $15,000 or more of house.
A longer term is a fourth lever, but a costlier one. Stretching from 15 to 30 years cuts the payment sharply and raises your maximum price, at the cost of far more total interest and much slower equity growth. Run both terms here, then check the total interest in the amortization calculator before deciding.
What This Calculator Leaves Out — and Why Trust the Rest
Closing costs. Budget 2-5% of the purchase price for lender fees, title, appraisal and escrow setup. They are paid on top of your down payment, so subtract them from your savings before entering a down payment here.
Maintenance and utilities. Commonly 1-2% of the home value a year, and no lender counts it. This is the single biggest reason buying at the aggressive figure goes wrong.
Gross versus take-home. DTI ratios are calculated on gross income, before tax, retirement contributions and childcare. Your actual disposable income is considerably smaller than the ratios imply.
Accuracy: Uses the same qualifying ratios and the same annuity formula lenders use, and iterates the property tax and PMI circularity to convergence rather than approximating it in one pass.
Privacy: Nothing is stored or sent anywhere. Every calculation runs entirely in your browser.
Portable: Export to CSV or PDF, hand your figures straight to the mortgage calculator, or use Copy Link to save your exact scenario in the URL.