Mortgage Calculator
Intuitively, we all know taking out a mortgage will be, for almost everyone, the biggest financial decision a person or family will make in their lifetime.
Further, a home loan is frequently thought of as a good investment when it is used to finance the purchase of a house or building that has a reasonable chance to appreciate in value.
"But how do I know if I can afford a mortgage," is a common refrain.
Helping you answer this question is precisely the goal of this mortgage calculator. You'll quickly notice this calculator is capable of a great deal more than just calculating a monthly mortgage payment. Spend a few minutes with it, and it will help you understand the actual cost of any potential (or existing) home loan. More below
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The Mortgage Payment
This home loan calculator does have a lot of options. Don't let the number of details put you off. Fortunately, if you only want to calculate a payment amount, you'll frequently have to enter only three values while leaving the other settings and inputs unchanged. The payment calculation is as easy as this:
- Click clear and enter values for:
- Loan Amount
- Number of Payments
- Annual Interest Rate
- Leave "Payment Amount (P & I only)" set to 0.
- Click either "Calc" or "Payment Schedule."
That's it. Now you'll know the principal and interest payment required to pay off the debt.
But for sure, this debt payment does not begin to cover the full cost of having a home loan. There are few other expenses, of course! And this calculator is designed to consider them all.
VERY IMPORTANT - You must enter a 0 if you want a value calculated. Some users have been frustrated by this. They want to know why the calculator does not just recalculate if they have changed one of the inputs.
This behavior is by design. We want the calculator to create an amortization schedule using whatever parameters you want to use. This is a feature!
By not automatically recalculating a payment, this calculator lets those users who do not have a "standard" loan create a payment schedule.
ABOUT DATES - This calculator now allows irregular length first periods. That is, the calculator calculates the exact amount of interest due even when the initial period is shorter or longer than the other scheduled periods. This will result in payment amounts as well as interest charges that do not match other calculators. If you want to match other calculators then set the "Loan Date" and "1st Payment Date" so that the time between them equals one full period as set in "Payment Frequency". Example: If the "Loan Date" is May 15th and the "Payment Frequency" is "Monthly," then the "1st Payment Date" should be set to June 15th, that is IF you want a conventional interest calculation. See the end of the "Help" text for some more details.
Of course, you can always leave the dates set as they are when the calculator loads.
Calculate many unknowns including the projected future value of the home. Free #mortgage calculator 😎 https://t.co/c982mU39C6 #RealEstate Compare future value to interest paid. pic.twitter.com/Qb03462EL5
— Karl Thompson (@Calculators4You) January 10, 2018
A Mortgage is More Than a Payment Amount
Enter "Annual Appreciation Rate" on option tab.
You can use this calculator to answer such questions as:
- How much mortgage can I afford?
- What is the mortgage payment?
- How much money do I need to buy a house?
- What is the down payment on a house?
Mortgage calculator shows $1,300 in tax savings after 2 payments.
The printable mortgage schedule has recently been upgraded to add support for the following:
- PMI — private mortgage insurance. Could be required if your loan to value (LTV) is more than 80%. That is, your down payment frequently needs to be 20% or more to avoid PMI.
- Property Taxes — are included in the escrow column on the schedule. Please be sure to enter an annual amount in the calculator.
- Casuality Insurance — is also included in the escrow column on the mortgage schedule. Again, enter an annual amount.
- Tax Benefits — shows tax savings as result of potential deduction for mortgage interest and property taxes.
- Points — calculated on the loan amount, they are reported in the first row of the schedule.
All the above are optional. That is, you may set them to 0.
Mortgage Calculator Help
Unlike our general loan or simple loan calculators, this calculator will allow you to have more than one unknown value in certain cases.
To indicate an unknown value, enter '0' (zero). There must be one unknown in each group — that is two unknowns are required.
You can enter the price of the real estate, the down payment percent you need, the total number of periods for which you want to borrow the money and the interest rate. When you click on "Calc", the loan amount and the monthly payment will be calculated.
If you enter the loan amount and "0" for the down payment percentage, then the down payment percentage (and down payment amount) will be calculated.
If you enter "0" for the price, a down payment percentage, "0" for the mortgage amount, the total periods, the interest rate and the payment you can afford, the calculator will calculate the loan amount and the price you can afford to pay. You can use this calculation to tell you what you can afford to pay and borrow and still stay within a budget.
Annual Property Taxes, Annual Insurance and Private Mortgage Ins. (PMI) are all optional. If you enter values, the periodic portion of each will be calculated and shown on the schedule. Property taxes and insurance are both included under escrow.
If a borrower does not have cash to cover at least 20% of the purchase price, some lenders will require the borrower to purchase private mortgage insurance to cover against a possible default. Premiums are typically 0.5% to 2.0% of the original loan amount. The borrower can drop the insurance coverage once the mortgage balance is less than 80% of the original purchase price. The calculator handles this automatically. (There may be other conditions as well under which the lender will no longer require the PMI. One such case might be apprciation of the real estate.)
Points are charges that are normally due at closing. It is an optional input. Borrowers (normally only in USA) may select to pay a lender "points" up front in exchange for a lower interest rate. Points are expressed in percent and are calculated on the amount borrowed. 3 points on a $200,000 mortgage equals $6,000. If the user enters points, this calculator includes their value in the summary and as part of the total payment at loan origination on the payment schedule.
Join the conversation. Tell me what you think.
Sandra says:
Do you have a calculator I can use to calculate the interest due on a loan on payment dates that I choose? For example, I would enter the loan date, then I would enter the date the payment was to be made so I could determine the amount of interest due on that specific payment date.
Thank you
Karl says:
Yes.
There are two calculators you could use.
The compound interest calculator will let you enter two dates and it will calculate the interest due at the rate you enter.
The Ultimate Financial Calculator will do the same, but it is also designed to track the balance of a loan. The user enters the payment as they are made, one the dates they are made and the interest due between the payment and the loan balance is calculated. Scroll down this page to see the tutorials. Read #1 for an overview and then #25 for tracking loan balances.
Sandra says:
Thanks!
DOLF VANKESTEREN says:
Please HELP ME.
using the online mortgage calculator with extra monthly payment.
Struggling to use starting date of 09-01-2018.
Program shows me 09-01,09-02,09-03, 09-04, 09-05 etc. would prefer to have a
monthly number, like 09-01-2018, 10-01-2018, 11-01-2018, 12-01-2018, 01-01-2019
etc.please assist.
Thank you
Karl says:
Thanks for using the calculator. I’ll try to help.
Are you saying you are seeing payments on every day? If so, how do you have the "Payment Frequency?:" set? It should be set to "Monthly" if you want to see dates that are 09/01, 10/01, 11/01 etc.
If it’s the extra payments you want to see as monthly, then on the options tab, set "Extra Payment Frequency?:" to "Monthly."
If this isn’t what you meant, please clarify. Please let me know how you make out.
DOLF VANKESTEREN says:
I tried again, same issue
DOLF VANKESTEREN says:
Hello, thank you for trying to assist, I followed your suggested information and still have the same issues. Process will not change to monthly payments, still showing
09-01-2018, 09-02-2018, 09-02-2018 ETC. NO CHANGE! Please review and advise.
Dolf sr 01-08-2019 10;10am
DOLF VANKESTEREN says:
Hello Karl. Please try to review issue and tell me what to change to make it work.
Please try to fix this issue. Entering monthly is not correcting the issue.
Thank you
Karl says:
By any chance, did you change the date format to a European date? That is, DD/MM/YYYY.
Please click on the "$ : MM/DD/YYYY" in the lower right corner and tell me how it’s set. If it’s set to DD/MM/YYYY then 09-02-2018 is Feb 9, 2018.
If that’s not the problem, then please select all the setting and copy/paste them into a reply message.
The calculator does create monthly schedules, so there has to be some setting somewhere that is off.
DOLF VANKESTEREN says:
Hello Karl.
That fixed that issue, Great, wonderful. Thank you
Next issue, program does not take out of payment 1st month interest and does not
apply 1st month extra payments, Result: incorrect interest, principal and balance data.
Please assist again to fix that issue, Thank you Dolf sr
Karl says:
You’re welcome. Now on to the next two items.
As just a general note, details are often important to help understand a question. I’m not quite sure if you are saying the calculator is not working, or you are asking for understanding. For example, you can easily confirm that the calculator will apply for an extra payment in the first month by reloading the webpage so the calculator has all the startup values. Then do just one thing – enter an extra payment of $1,000 and change nothing else. Calculate and look at the schedule. You’ll see the extra $1,000 applied to the loan. Therefore, to figure out why you don’t see an extra payment in the first month, I really need to know your inputs. If you can copy/past them to a replay, that would help. (Don’t worry about the formatting. I can straighten that out.)
I don’t know what you mean that it does not take out the first month’s interest. It will. What’s your loan date? What’s your first payment date? If they are the same, then there is no interest due with the first payment! 🙂
Sherry says:
I am working on a balloon loan. There will be semi-annually payments, but the last there will be no payments except for the balloon payment. The month the loan starts is March, however a need the balloon payment to occur in October. Is there anyway to put in an exact date for the balloon payment?
Karl says:
You can’t set the exact balloon payment due date with this calculator.
However, you can do that with the Ultimate Financial Calculator. Once on that calculator’s page, scroll down to the tutorials. There are two about balloon payments that you should find useful. Also, check out tutorial #1 for an overview.