Home Loan Calculator

This home loan calculator works out your monthly payment from the home price, your down payment, the rate and the term, then adds property tax, insurance, PMI and any HOA fee. It also gives you two dates most calculators leave out: the month you can ask your lender to drop PMI, and the month the law says it has to end on its own.

About the Home Loan Calculator

Working out a monthly payment is the easy part, and the Home Loan Calculator does it to the cent. The part people get wrong is private mortgage insurance. If you put down less than 20%, you pay it every month. You don’t pay it forever, though. Federal law sets when it stops, and you can usually get it removed a year or more before your lender would stop charging it.

• The full monthly payment. Principal and interest, a twelfth of your property tax and insurance, PMI and HOA, each on its own line.
• Two PMI dates. When your balance is scheduled to reach 80% of the price (you can ask to cancel), and 78% (it must end automatically).
• Extra payments. Add a monthly amount and see the interest you save, how many months early you finish, and how much sooner you reach 80%.
• Year by year. Interest, principal, PMI and the balance left at the end of every calendar year.
• The working. The formula with your numbers in it.

The Home Loan Calculator runs in your browser. Your price, income and loan details aren’t sent anywhere or stored.

How to use the Home Loan Calculator

1. Enter the home and the loan. Price, down payment, interest rate, term, and the month of your first payment. The first payment is usually due on the first day of the second month after you close.
2. Add an extra payment if you plan one. Any amount you’ll pay on top of the required payment each month, all of it going to principal.
3. Enter taxes, insurance and PMI. Yearly property tax and home insurance, any monthly HOA fee, and the PMI rate from your Loan Estimate. If you don’t have one yet, 0.5% is a middle figure for good credit.
4. Read the results. The monthly total, the split, total interest, the two PMI dates and the table.

A worked example

A $400,000 home, $40,000 down (10%), 6.5% for 30 years, first payment in December 2026. Property tax $4,800 a year, insurance $1,800 a year, PMI at 0.5%, no HOA. These are the Home Loan Calculator’s defaults.

1. Loan. $400,000 – $40,000 = $360,000, 90% of the price.
2. Monthly rate. 6.5% ÷ 12 = 0.5417%.
3. Principal and interest. $360,000 × r ÷ (1 – (1 + r)^-360) = $2,275.44.
4. Tax and insurance. $4,800 ÷ 12 = $400, and $1,800 ÷ 12 = $150.
5. PMI. 0.5% of $360,000 is $1,800 a year, or $150 a month.
6. Monthly total. $2,275.44 + $400 + $150 + $150 = $2,975.44.

Over 30 years you pay $459,164 of interest, more than the loan itself. In 2027, the first full year, $23,259.74 of your payments is interest and only $4,045.54 comes off the balance. That ratio slowly turns around. It’s the reason extra payments early in a loan do so much.

When PMI comes off

The Homeowners Protection Act of 1998 gives you three ways out of PMI on a conventional loan. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sets them out plainly:

“Original value” is the lower of the price you paid and the appraisal when you bought. The Home Loan Calculator uses the price you enter.

On the example, 80% of $400,000 is $320,000 and 78% is $312,000. The schedule reaches $320,000 with payment 95, in October 2034, and $312,000 with payment 109, in December 2035. Those 14 months of PMI cost $2,100. Most people never send the letter and pay them anyway.

Extra payments and PMI: the date that moves and the one that doesn’t

This is the part a lot of homeowners miss. The automatic 78% date comes from the original amortization schedule. Pay extra and your balance falls faster, but that date stays exactly where it was. Only the request date moves, because you can ask once your actual balance reaches 80%.

Put $300 a month extra on the example loan in the Home Loan Calculator:

• Your balance reaches 80% at payment 56, in July 2031, instead of payment 95.
• The automatic date is still payment 109, in December 2035.
• If you ask at payment 56 you pay $8,400 of PMI. If you wait for it to end on its own you pay $16,350. Asking saves $7,950.
• The extra $300 also saves $144,406.67 of interest and finishes the loan 98 payments early, in September 2048.

So if you’re paying ahead on a loan with PMI, put a note in your calendar for the month the Home Loan Calculator shows under “You can ask to drop PMI”.

What different extra payments save

On the same $360,000 at 6.5% for 30 years:

Before paying extra, check your loan has no prepayment penalty, and tell your servicer the extra is for principal. Some apply it to next month’s payment instead unless told.

15, 20 or 30 years

The same $360,000 at 6.5% with PMI at 0.5%. Different terms usually come with different rates, so treat this as the effect of the term alone:

A 15-year loan costs $860.55 more a month than a 30-year one and saves $254,686.84 of interest. A shorter term also gets you out of PMI years sooner, because the balance falls faster from the start.

What each half point of rate costs

The same $360,000 over 30 years, in the Home Loan Calculator:

Half a point is roughly $120 a month and $43,000 over 30 years on this loan. Get Loan Estimates from at least three lenders on the same day. They’re standard forms, so you can compare them line by line.

How much to put down

The same $400,000 home at 6.5% for 30 years, with the same tax and insurance:

With 5% down you pay PMI for 135 months, $21,374.55 in all, at the same 0.5% rate. In practice the rate is higher on smaller down payments and lower credit scores, which widens the gap. Twenty percent down isn’t required, but it’s the line where PMI disappears.

Property tax and insurance in the payment

Most lenders collect tax and insurance with your payment and hold them in an escrow account, then pay the bills when they’re due. That’s why the Home Loan Calculator adds a twelfth of each to the monthly figure. To find the tax, look up the home’s last tax bill on the county assessor’s site; the listing often shows it too. Don’t use the seller’s bill if they had a homestead exemption you won’t get straight away. For insurance, get a quote before you make an offer. In parts of Florida, California and the Gulf Coast it can now be several times the national average, and it changes what you can afford more than a quarter point of rate does.

Home loan or mortgage?

In the US the two words mean the same thing: a loan to buy a home, with the home as security. “Mortgage” is technically the legal document that pledges the house, but lenders, the CFPB and everyone else use the words interchangeably. A home loan calculator and a mortgage calculator work out the payment the same way.

Common mistakes

• Budgeting for principal and interest only. On the example, tax, insurance and PMI add $700 a month, almost a third on top.
• Waiting for PMI to end by itself. On the example that costs $2,100 more than asking at 80%, and far more if you’ve paid ahead.
• Assuming extra payments end PMI automatically. They don’t. Only the request date moves.
• Forgetting that taxes and insurance rise. Your escrow payment is reset every year. The principal and interest part stays fixed on a fixed-rate loan; the total doesn’t.
• Comparing rates without the APR. Points and fees are folded into the APR on your Loan Estimate. Compare like with like.

How the Home Loan Calculator works

1. Loan is the price less your down payment.
2. Principal and interest come from the standard formula, rounded to the cent. At 0% the loan is simply divided by the number of months.
3. Schedule. Each month’s interest is the balance times the monthly rate, rounded to the cent. The last payment clears whatever is left.
4. PMI is the yearly rate times the original loan, divided by 12. It’s charged with every payment made while the balance is above the line, including the payment that takes it to the line.
5. PMI dates. The request and automatic dates are read from the schedule with no extra payments, as the law requires. Your own 80% date is read from the schedule with your extra payments. If the midpoint of the term comes before 78%, the midpoint is used.
6. Totals and the table follow the payments you actually make, extra included, with PMI running to the automatic date.

What the Home Loan Calculator can’t tell you

• Your rate and PMI premium. Those depend on your credit, the lender and the loan. Your Loan Estimate has both.
• FHA, VA and USDA rules. FHA mortgage insurance often lasts the life of the loan, and VA and USDA loans charge funding or guarantee fees instead. The payment here is still right; the PMI dates aren’t.
• Adjustable rates. The Home Loan Calculator assumes a fixed rate for the whole term.
• Closing costs. They’re paid at closing, not in the monthly payment.
• Whether your servicer will accept a request. You need a good payment record and, often, an appraisal. The date shown is the earliest you can ask, not a promise.

Checking the payment against your take-home pay? Our Paycheck Calculator Texas works out net pay after federal tax. Comparing a price change or a rate move? The percentage increase calculator handles that, and the monthly car payment calculator does the same job for a car loan.