Mortgage Calculator
Estimate your monthly mortgage payment.
Details
= $67,500
Monthly payment
$3,252.76
$382,500 loan · paid off Jun 2056 (30 yr)
Loan amount
$382,500
Down payment
$67,500
Total interest
$510,620
Total out-of-pocket
$1,284,856
This calculator works out what a home loan costs you each month. Enter the price, your down payment, the interest rate and the term, and it returns the monthly payment split into principal and interest.
Switch on the tax, insurance, PMI and HOA fields and it also gives the full amount your lender will actually collect, plus the total interest over the life of the loan and a year-by-year schedule of how the balance falls.
What is a mortgage?
A mortgage is a loan you use to buy a home. You pay part of the price yourself, called the down payment, and borrow the rest from a bank. You then pay that back in equal monthly amounts, usually over 15 or 30 years. The house is the bank's security: if you stop paying, they can take it.
Each monthly payment is split in two. Part is principal, which reduces what you owe. Part is interest, which is the bank's fee for lending you the money. Early on, almost all of it is interest. That slowly flips, and by the final years nearly all of it is principal.
Your bank also collects property tax and home insurance with the payment, and holds them in an account called escrow until the bills come due. So the amount leaving your account is bigger than the loan payment alone. That full amount is what to compare against your budget.
A $375,000 home with 20% down, so $300,000 borrowed at 6% over 30 years. Escrow adds $493.75 a month, which is 27% on top of the loan payment and the usual reason a real bill is higher than a quick estimate.
What to enter
- Home price
- What the house costs.
- Down payment
- The cash you pay upfront. Put in a percentage or a dollar amount. Under 20% and the bank adds an extra monthly fee called PMI.
- Loan term
- How many years you take to pay it back. 30 years means a smaller monthly payment; 15 years costs much less overall.
- Interest rate
- The yearly rate the bank charges. Use the rate you were actually quoted, not one from an advert.
- Payment frequency
- Monthly is 12 payments a year. Bi-weekly is every two weeks, which quietly adds up to 13 monthly payments a year and clears the loan sooner.
- Extra payment
- Any additional amount you pay toward the balance each month. Even small amounts cut years off the loan.
- Property tax
- Your yearly tax bill from the local council. It varies a lot by area, from roughly 0.3% to over 2.5% of the home's value.
- Home insurance
- Yearly cost to insure the house. Your bank requires it.
- PMI
- Private mortgage insurance. A monthly fee charged when your down payment is under 20%. It protects the bank, not you, and it stops once you owe enough less. See the PMI calculator to work out the cost.
- HOA fees
- Monthly dues if the property is in a managed community. Not part of the mortgage, but part of your housing cost.
- Yearly increases
- How much you expect tax and insurance to rise each year. Leave these at zero and later years will look cheaper than they will be.
What this assumes
The interest rate stays the same for the whole term. An adjustable-rate mortgage will not behave like this once its fixed period ends.
PMI stops once you owe 80% or less of the original price. Your bank's exact trigger can differ slightly, which the FAQs cover.
Closing costs are not included. Those are a one-off charge when you buy, not part of the monthly payment.
How to calculate a mortgage payment
There is one standard formula. It finds the fixed monthly amount that clears the debt to exactly zero by the end of the term.
- M
- Your monthly payment
- P
- The amount you borrowed (price minus down payment)
- r
- The yearly rate divided by 12
- n
- The number of months (30 years = 360)
Work out what you borrow. Take the price and subtract your down payment. Interest is charged on this, not on the full price of the house.
Turn the rate into a monthly one. Divide the yearly rate by 100, then by 12. A 6% rate becomes 0.005 per month.
Count the months. Years multiplied by 12.
Put them in the formula. Work out (1 + r) to the power of n first, then fill in the rest.
Add tax and insurance. Divide your yearly tax and insurance by 12 and add them on. That total is what actually leaves your bank account.
See a worked example: $300,000 borrowed at 6% over 30 years
- Amount borrowed
- $300,000
- Rate
- 6% a year, so 0.005 a month
- Months
- 360
First work out (1.005) to the power of 360. That comes to about 6.023.
Top of the sum: 300,000 x 0.005 x 6.023 = 9,034.
Bottom of the sum: 6.023 - 1 = 5.023.
Divide one by the other: 9,034 / 5.023 = 1,798.65.
In the first month, $1,500 of that is interest and only $298.65 comes off what you owe. That is why the balance drops so slowly at the start.
Monthly payment: $1,798.65
Frequently asked questions
Usually because you are comparing two different things. Most quick calculators show only the loan payment. Your bank also collects property tax, home insurance and, if you put down under 20%, PMI. Together these often add 20% to 30% on top.
Switch on the tax and insurance fields above and the number should line up with what your lender quoted.
A common rule of thumb is to keep total housing costs at or below about 28% of your gross monthly pay, and all debt payments below about 36%.
This page works forwards, from a price to a payment. To go the other way, from your income to a price you can afford, use the home affordability calculator.
A 15-year loan costs far less in total interest, but the monthly payment is much higher. It is a question about your monthly cash, not just about maths.
Change the term above and compare. Worth remembering: a 15-year term locks you into the bigger payment, whereas paying extra on a 30-year loan is your choice each month and you can stop any time.
By law it comes off automatically once your balance is scheduled to reach 78% of the original price, as long as your payments are up to date.
You can also ask for it to be removed earlier, at 80%, if you have a clean payment record. Both figures use the original price, so the house going up in value does not remove it by itself, though many lenders will consider a fresh valuation.
Yes, and it is simple arithmetic rather than a trick. Paying half your monthly amount every two weeks gives 26 half-payments a year, which is 13 full ones instead of 12.
That spare payment goes straight onto the balance. Some banks charge a fee to set this up, in which case just paying a little extra each month does the same job for free.
A lot, because every dollar you pay early also cancels all the future interest that dollar would have built up. On a 30-year loan, even a modest extra amount can cut several years off.
One thing to check: tell your bank the extra money is for the principal. Otherwise some will treat it as paying next month's bill early, which saves you nothing.
Not the Federal Reserve, at least not directly. Mortgage rates track long-term bond yields, particularly the 10-year Treasury and mortgage-backed securities, which is why they sometimes move the opposite way to a Fed decision.
Freddie Mac publishes a weekly survey of average rates, which is the figure most news reports quote. Your own rate will differ from it based on your credit, down payment, loan type and the lender.
It is usually the single biggest factor within your control. Scores run 300 to 850, and lenders price in bands, so crossing a boundary can move your rate more than the points suggest.
The score is built mostly from paying on time and how much of your available credit you are using, then length of history, recent applications and credit mix.
Before applying for anything large, check your reports from all three national bureaus. Errors are common, disputing them is free, and a corrected report is the cheapest rate reduction there is.
Conventional loans are the standard, usually needing a higher credit score, with PMI below 20% down. FHA loans allow lower scores and smaller deposits but carry mortgage insurance that often lasts the life of the loan.
VA loans, for eligible veterans and service members, are the strongest terms available: typically no down payment and no monthly mortgage insurance, with a one-time funding fee instead. USDA loans serve eligible rural areas.
Then the rate structure: fixed for the whole term, or an [adjustable-rate mortgage](/real-estate/arm-vs-fixed-calculator) that is fixed for a period and then resets.
It can be, if you itemise. Interest on a qualifying loan secured by your main or second home is deductible, subject to a cap on the loan amount that depends on when the loan was taken out.
The catch is that the standard deduction roughly doubled in 2018, so most households now take it and never use the mortgage deduction at all. Work out whether your itemised total actually exceeds the standard deduction before counting on it.
Problems people actually run into
A fixed rate does not mean a fixed payment
Your loan payment genuinely never changes. The tax and insurance part does, and it often jumps in year two.
The usual cause is that the council re-values the property after it sells, so the tax the previous owner paid no longer applies. New-build homes are the sharpest version: the first tax bill is often based on the empty land, then rises once the finished house is on the books.
Extra payments can go to the wrong place
This calculator assumes extra money comes straight off your balance. Not every lender does that by default. A common outcome is that it gets treated as paying next month early, which gives you none of the saving you expected.
Most lenders have a principal-only option online. It is worth checking where the money landed after your first extra payment.
Results are estimates for general information only and are not professional financial, medical, or legal advice. Read our full disclaimer.
Sources
- Homeowners Protection Act (PMI Cancellation Act) procedures · Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
- When can I remove Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI)? · Office of the Comptroller of the Currency
- Primary Mortgage Market Survey, weekly average rates · Freddie Mac
- Mortgages: shopping for a home loan · Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
- VA home loan programs · US Department of Veterans Affairs
- Publication 936, Home Mortgage Interest Deduction · Internal Revenue Service
- Federal Housing Finance Agency · FHFA
- Credit reports and scores · Consumer Financial Protection Bureau
Last updated: August 29, 2026