- The maximum home price you can genuinely afford, not just what a lender will approve
- Your full monthly payment — principal, interest, taxes, insurance, PMI, and HOA together
- The one-time closing costs due at signing, separate from your monthly payment
- Whether private mortgage insurance applies to your down payment, and for how long
- How much extra monthly or annual payments could save in interest and years
What you'll figure out
Step preview
1
What can you afford?
Let's start with your budget before looking at loans
2
What will your full monthly payment be?
Principal, interest, taxes, insurance, PMI, and HOA — all together
3
What will closing cost you?
One-time fees due at signing, separate from your monthly payment
4
What if your down payment is under 20%?
Private mortgage insurance kicks in below that threshold
5
What if you pay extra each month?
See how extra payments shorten your mortgage and cut interest
Start Journey →
Takes about 12 min · Save anytime
Most home buyers only calculate one thing — the monthly mortgage payment. That leaves out how much home you can actually afford in the first place, the closing costs due in cash at signing, whether PMI applies, and how much extra payments could save over the life of the loan. This journey walks through all five in one flow.
Who this is for
- First-time home buyers in the US planning a purchase in the next 1-3 years
- Buyers comparing down payment sizes and whether to wait to avoid PMI
- Existing mortgage holders who want to see the impact of prepaying
Related journeys
Frequently Asked Questions
About 12 minutes. You can pause and resume anytime within the same browser session, and each step is saved as you go.
No. Each step works independently, but the power is in seeing your affordability, monthly payment, closing costs, PMI, and prepayment savings together on the summary page.
The mortgage step is where you typically settle on the actual home price you're shopping for, since step 1 gives you a ceiling rather than a specific listing price. Every field stays editable if you want to model a different number.
No. Everything stays in your browser's session storage and clears when you close the tab. Nothing is sent to thecalcu.com's servers.
Yes. Go back to any step, change a value, and steps that pulled data from it get flagged as needing a recalculation, both on that step and on the summary page.
The PMI step will show $0 — private mortgage insurance only applies below 20% down. You can still run the step to confirm, or skip straight to the prepayment step.
Those are the two numbers a mortgage payoff calculation actually needs — your remaining balance and your current payment — and step 2 is where the loan amount and monthly principal & interest were calculated in the first place.
Check the summary page for all five results side by side, then compare your total monthly payment from step 2 against your actual take-home pay, and see how much the prepayment step could save you if you have room in your budget for extra payments.
Free calculators used in this journey