Course 1 – Unit 7: Work Backward From Your Comfortable Payment

Mortgage Calculator Feature 4: Work Backward From Your Comfortable Payment

A mortgage calculator can let you specify a monthly payment that fits your budget. Then the calculator works backwards to find the home price and downpayment within your range. For instance, if you wanted to pay $1,500 per month and want to put down 20%, you could afford a home price near $290,000.

Note that your mortgage interest rate makes a huge difference affordability. Dropping the rate a mere 0.50% to 3.75% allows for a 14,000 dollar jump in affordability. Home buyers often save by shopping the best interest rate from least three lenders.

Mortgage Calculator Feature 5: Check Your Loan Payoff Progress

See the progression of paying mortgage interest and principal. The initial breakout of monthly payments doesn’t demonstrate how you build equity, which can be important in making decisions about selling, refinancing, or establishing an equity credit line. See how the payments shift to include greater amounts of principal over time.

These advanced features of mortgage calculators help you better plan your home purchase and mortgage applications so you know how much payments will run and how much house you can afford.