House Affordability Calculator

The 28/36 rule is a long-standing guideline used by US mortgage lenders. Front-end DTI — your housing payment (principal, interest, taxes, insurance, and any HOA) divided by your gross monthly income — should be no more than 28%. Back-end DTI — that housing payment plus all other recurring debts (car loans, student loans, credit-card minimums, alimony, child support) divided by gross monthly income — should be no more than 36%. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau cites this as the standard affordability benchmark, and Fannie Mae references it in its Selling Guide. Some lenders stretch back-end DTI to 43% (the Qualified Mortgage limit under 12 CFR 1026.43) or even 50% for borrowers with strong compensating factors, but 28/36 is what "comfortable" looks like.

The 30-year fixed is the dominant US first-mortgage product — Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey has tracked it as the benchmark since 1971, and it accounts for the large majority of new originations. A 15-year mortgage carries a lower rate but a much higher monthly payment, so it caps the home price you qualify for at a given income. If you want a 15-year estimate, multiply the 30-year monthly P&I by roughly 1.4–1.6× as a rough guide, then re-derive the price you can afford.

No. The calculator includes principal, interest, property taxes, and homeowners insurance — the four components of PITI. It does not add private mortgage insurance (typically required when down payment is below 20% on a conventional loan; commonly 0.3–1.5% of the loan annually), HOA dues (common in condos and planned communities), flood or earthquake insurance (mandatory in some areas), or closing costs (2–5% of the home price at purchase). All of these reduce what you can comfortably afford, so the calculator output is best treated as an upper bound.

Lenders look at recurring obligations that show on your credit report or are otherwise verifiable: auto loan or lease payments, student loan payments (or 0.5–1% of the balance if in deferment, depending on the loan program), the minimum monthly payment on each credit card, personal loan payments, alimony, and court-ordered child support. Things like groceries, utilities, gym memberships, and subscriptions don't count toward DTI — they're part of the broader residual-income check rather than the ratio itself.

It is a rough guideline, not an offer. A real underwriting decision also weighs credit score (which sets the rate and may add risk-based pricing adjustments), employment history (typically a 2-year look-back for W-2 income, with self-employed borrowers usually needing two years of filed returns), cash reserves, the appraised value of the property, and loan-program-specific overlays (FHA, VA, USDA, conventional). Two lenders can produce materially different numbers for the same applicant. Use this to set expectations, then talk to a loan officer or use a lender's pre-approval flow before house-hunting.

Property tax varies more than most buyers expect. The US national effective rate is about 1.1%, but New Jersey, Illinois, and New Hampshire are closer to 2.0–2.2%, while Hawaii, Alabama, and Colorado are below 0.6%. Tax also varies by county and city within a state. Pull the effective rate for the specific town you're targeting (county assessor websites and Zillow tax history are both reasonable sources) and update the property-tax field — a one-point change typically moves the maximum affordable price by 8–12%.