Most calculators show you principal and interest and call it a day. We show you the full PITI payment — taxes, insurance, PMI, the works — plus what you'll pay in interest over the life of the loan.
Because the sticker payment your lender quotes isn't the payment that shows up in your bank account.
Direct answers to the most common questions, in plain language. Skim if you're in a hurry; dig deeper below.
Roughly $3,300–$3,600/month all-in.
At 7% with 20% down, you're looking at roughly $2,661 in principal and interest plus another $600–$900 in taxes and insurance. Call it $3,300–$3,600/month all-in before utilities and HOA.
Keep PITI under 28% of gross monthly income.
The lazy rule is your mortgage payment shouldn't exceed 28% of gross monthly income, and total debt shouldn't exceed 36%. On a $120K salary, that caps your PITI around $2,800/month.
Saves ~60% interest but raises the payment 25–30%.
You'll pay roughly 60% less interest but commit to a payment that's 25–30% higher every month. Worth it if your income is stable and you'd otherwise just spend the difference.
Automatically at 78% LTV, or by request at 80%.
Automatically at 78% loan-to-value, or you can request removal at 80% LTV. On a $500K home with 10% down, that's typically year 6–8 of payments.
The mechanics in short answers — no jargon, no upsell.
Most calculators show principal and interest only because it's the smallest number. We add property taxes, homeowners insurance, PMI, and HOA so the payment matches what'll actually clear your account.
Every payment is broken into principal and interest based on the remaining balance. Year 1 you're paying almost entirely interest. Year 25 it flips. The chart shows you the crossover point.
A 30-year loan looks affordable until you see the 15-year next to it. We always show both so you can decide whether the lower payment is actually worth $300K extra in interest.
Add $100, $500, or $1,000 to your monthly payment and watch the payoff date jump forward by years. This is the number that gets people to actually start prepaying.
Designed so anyone can model their situation in under a minute, with or without a finance background.
We include taxes, insurance, and PMI so the number isn't a lie.
See exactly when interest stops eating your payment.
Find out what an extra $200/month actually does.
The comparison every buyer should make and almost no one does.
Know when your payment automatically drops by hundreds.
Calculate, close the tab, done. Your numbers never leave your browser.
Everything you might ask before, during, or after using this tool.
The standard advice says invest if your expected return beats your mortgage rate. At 7% mortgage rates, that's a high bar — the S&P has averaged about 10% historically but with serious volatility. The unspoken benefit of 20% down is no PMI, which can add $200–$400/month to your payment. Run both scenarios and look at total wealth in 10 years, not just the monthly payment.
The interest rate is what gets applied to your loan balance. APR includes the rate plus origination fees, points, mortgage insurance, and closing costs spread across the loan term. APR is always higher than the rate and is the more honest number for comparing lenders. If two lenders quote you 7.0% but one has a 7.4% APR and the other has 7.1%, the second one is meaningfully cheaper.
The 15-year almost always has a lower interest rate — typically 0.5%–0.75% less. If you have the discipline to actually prepay, the 30-year gives you flexibility (drop back to minimum if you lose your job). If you're being honest with yourself and you won't prepay, take the 15-year and lock in the savings.
2%–5% of the home price. On a $500K home, that's $10K–$25K on top of your down payment. This covers origination fees, title insurance, appraisal, inspection, prepaid taxes and insurance, and miscellaneous lender garbage. Some sellers will pay part of these in a buyer's market.
Fixed-rate locks your interest rate for the entire term. ARMs lock for an initial period (5, 7, or 10 years) then adjust annually based on a benchmark rate. ARMs typically start 0.5%–1% lower than fixed rates. They make sense if you're confident you'll move or refinance before the adjustment period — otherwise you're gambling on future rate cuts.
You can deduct interest on up to $750K of mortgage debt if you itemize, which most people don't anymore because the standard deduction is so high. For a single filer in 2026, you'd need over $15,000 in total itemized deductions to benefit. Property taxes are also deductible but capped at $10K combined with state income taxes (SALT cap).
A point costs 1% of the loan amount and typically reduces your rate by 0.25%. Divide the cost by the monthly savings to get a break-even point in months. If you plan to stay in the house longer than the break-even, points pay off. If you're not sure you'll stay seven-plus years, skip them.
FHA loans go as low as 3.5%. Conventional loans can go to 3% for first-time buyers. VA loans (military) and USDA loans (rural) can hit 0%. But everything below 20% triggers PMI or a funding fee. A lower down payment also means a higher loan balance, which compounds into thousands more in interest.
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Walk into any mortgage broker's office and they'll quote you "principal and interest." That's the number that fits on a marketing flyer. It's also missing roughly 25% of what you'll actually pay every month.
Property taxes in a place like Austin or New Jersey can run $800–$1,500/month on a moderate home. Homeowners insurance is another $100–$250/month, more if you're in a hurricane or wildfire zone. If your down payment is under 20%, PMI adds $150–$400/month. HOA dues in some neighborhoods are $300–$800/month before you've even bought a couch.
The PITI calculation matters because lenders qualify you based on it, but they advertise the smaller number. People stretch their budget based on the principal-and-interest payment, get to closing, and suddenly the real payment is $700 higher than the number on their spreadsheet. That's the gap between feeling comfortable and feeling house-poor.
The fix is to do the math yourself before you fall in love with a listing. Take the home price, look up the property tax rate (usually on the county assessor's site), get a real insurance quote from one company (it takes 10 minutes online), and plug it all into a calculator that handles PITI properly.
The financial internet has been arguing about 15-year vs 30-year mortgages for decades. Both sides have legitimate points. Here's the actual math.
On a $500,000 loan at current rates — say 7% for 30-year and 6.5% for 15-year — the 30-year payment is roughly $3,327 and the 15-year is roughly $4,357. That's $1,030 more per month for the 15-year. Over the life of the loans, the 30-year pays about $698,000 in total interest. The 15-year pays about $284,000. The 15-year saves you $414,000.
The pro-30 argument is that the difference ($1,030/month) invested at 10% historical market returns becomes more than $400K over 15 years, so you come out ahead and keep flexibility. The pro-15 argument is that almost no one actually invests the difference — most people just absorb it into lifestyle creep — so the forced savings of the 15-year wins.
Both are right. The question is whether you're the person who'll actually invest the difference or the person who'll spend it. Be honest. Most people are the second person.
If you're disciplined and your income is variable, take the 30-year and prepay aggressively when you have the cash. If you're a normal human and your income is stable, take the 15-year and let the structure do the work for you.
Twenty percent down has become the cultural default in America, and for good reason — it eliminates PMI, gets you a better interest rate, and gives you immediate equity. But "better" doesn't always mean "right for you."
The case for 20%: you avoid PMI (which can run $150–$400/month), you typically get a slightly lower interest rate (lenders see you as lower risk), you have equity from day one in case you need to sell, and your monthly payment is lower.
The case against: 20% on a $500K home is $100K. That's $100K not earning anything in the market, not sitting as an emergency fund, not funding your kid's college, not paying off your higher-interest student loans. If you're 28 and your alternative is a 3% down FHA loan, putting that extra $85K in an S&P 500 index fund for 30 years could easily turn into $1M+.
The third path nobody talks about: 10% down. You still pay PMI for a few years, but you preserve more cash, the PMI drops off when you hit 78% LTV (typically 4–6 years in), and you've kept liquidity for emergencies. For most buyers, this is the actual sweet spot — better than 3.5% (huge PMI burden), more practical than 20% (massive cash drag).
Your amortization schedule is the month-by-month breakdown of where your payment goes. In month one of a 30-year loan at 7%, on a $400,000 balance, you'll pay roughly $2,661 — and of that, $2,333 is interest and only $328 is principal.
Read that again. In your first payment, 88% of your money is interest. You're barely buying any of the house.
This ratio flips slowly. By year 10, you're paying about 60% interest, 40% principal per payment. By year 20, it's 30/70. By year 28, you're finally building real equity quickly. The brutal reality of how mortgages work is that the bank front-loads almost all the interest into the early years.
Two implications. First, this is why prepayment is so powerful — every extra dollar you throw at the loan in year one kills decades of compounding interest. Second, this is why refinancing isn't always a win even at a lower rate — if you've been paying for 8 years and refinance to a new 30-year, you're back to paying 88% interest again.
If you're going to refinance, refinance into a shorter term (or keep paying the old payment on the new loan). Otherwise you're just resetting the interest clock.
The classic refinance rule is "refinance if rates drop 1% below your current rate." That's not quite right. The real rule is "refinance when the break-even is shorter than how long you'll stay in the house."
Calculate break-even like this: take the total closing costs (typically $3,000–$6,000 for a refinance) and divide by your monthly savings. If closing costs are $5,000 and you'll save $200/month, your break-even is 25 months. If you'll be in the house longer than that, refinance. If not, don't.
The trap people fall into is refinancing every time rates drop, resetting the clock on a 30-year loan each time. You might lower the payment, but you're paying 30 more years of interest from a new starting point. The way to avoid this is to refinance into a shorter term — go from a 30-year to a 20-year or 15-year — or to keep making your old higher payment on the new lower-rate loan.
Also watch for "no closing cost" refinances. The costs don't disappear; they get baked into a higher rate. Always compare the no-cost rate against the standard rate and calculate which one wins over your expected hold period.
Two short notes worth reading before you trust any number on this page.
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