House Affordability Calculator
Estimate the home price you can afford from your income, debts and down payment. Every figure stays on your device.
The House Affordability Calculator runs entirely in your browser. Your income, debts and down payment never leave your device, and nothing is uploaded to ArrayKit. Results are estimates only, not financial advice.
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About House Affordability Calculator
House Affordability Calculator estimates the maximum home price you can realistically afford from your annual income, existing monthly debts, down payment, mortgage rate and loan term. It applies standard front-end and back-end debt-to-income (DTI) ceilings — the same style of limits lenders use — to find the largest monthly payment you can carry, then inverts the amortization formula to size the loan and total home price that payment supports. Adjust the DTI limits or add estimated monthly taxes and insurance for a closer read on your budget. It's built for home buyers, renters exploring a purchase, and anyone sanity-checking a lender's pre-approval number before shopping. These are estimates only, not financial advice — always confirm numbers with a lender. Everything computes locally in your browser; your income and debt figures are never uploaded.
Features
- Estimates maximum home price from income, debts, down payment, rate and term
- Applies standard 28% front-end and 36% back-end DTI ceilings by default
- Lets you override both DTI limits for a stricter or looser lender profile
- Optional monthly taxes & insurance field for a more realistic payment cap
- Shows the max affordable monthly payment, max loan amount, and max home price
- Copy a plain-text summary of all three results in one click
- Clear validation errors for missing or out-of-range inputs
- Runs entirely in your browser — your finances are never sent anywhere
How to use the House Affordability Calculator
- Enter your gross annual household income and existing monthly debt payments
- Enter your available down payment, expected mortgage rate and loan term
- Optionally open Advanced to set custom DTI limits or monthly taxes & insurance
- Read the estimated max home price, max loan and max monthly payment
- Copy the summary to compare against listings or a lender's pre-approval
Example
Input
$90k income, $500 debts, $40k down, 6%
Output
Max home price ≈ $360,000
A 28% front-end DTI caps the payment; the amortization formula converts that payment into a loan size and adds the down payment.
Common errors & troubleshooting
- Rate entered as 0.06 instead of 6, producing an unrealistically huge home price. — Enter the mortgage rate as a percent, e.g. 6 or 6.5, not a decimal fraction.
- Result shows $0 for every field. — Your monthly debts or taxes/insurance may exceed the back-end DTI ceiling for your income — lower debts or income assumptions, or raise the DTI limits under Advanced.
- Max home price looks higher than what a lender actually offered. — The House Affordability Calculator only models DTI ratios; it doesn't account for credit score, cash reserves, PMI or a lender's specific overlays.
- Changing monthly debts doesn't change the result. — When the front-end DTI ceiling is already lower than the back-end ceiling, the front-end limit binds and small debt changes have no effect until debts push the back-end ceiling below it.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the House Affordability Calculator?
- It's a tool that estimates the maximum home price you can afford by applying front-end and back-end debt-to-income ceilings to your income and debts, then converting the resulting payment cap into a loan size and home price.
- What DTI ratios does the House Affordability Calculator use by default?
- It defaults to a 28% front-end ratio (housing costs as a share of gross monthly income) and a 36% back-end ratio (all debts, including housing, as a share of gross monthly income) — common conventional-loan guidelines. Both are adjustable under Advanced.
- Does the House Affordability Calculator include property taxes and insurance?
- Only if you enter an estimated monthly taxes & insurance figure under Advanced. It's subtracted from the affordable payment before the loan size is calculated, giving a more realistic result.
- Is the max home price from this calculator guaranteed by a lender?
- No. It's an estimate only, not financial advice. Actual approval also depends on credit score, cash reserves, employment history, PMI and a lender's specific underwriting rules.
- Does the House Affordability Calculator upload my income or debt figures?
- No. All calculations run locally in your browser. The income, debts and down payment you enter are never sent to ArrayKit or anyone else.
- How does a down payment affect the max home price in this calculator?
- The down payment is added directly to the max loan amount, so every extra dollar of down payment raises the max home price by the same amount without changing the affordable monthly payment.
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