How to Use the Home Affordability Calculator
Enter your annual income, existing monthly debts, available down payment, and interest rate. Adjust the debt-to-income slider to set how aggressive or conservative the estimate should be, and the calculator shows an estimated affordable home price along with the resulting loan amount and monthly payment.
The Home Affordability Calculator works backward from your income and debts to a home price, rather than forward from a home price to a payment — here's how to get an estimate that fits your actual comfort level.
Setting up the core inputs
Annual household income should reflect gross (pre-tax) income for all borrowers on the loan. Monthly debt payments should include every recurring debt obligation — car loans, student loans, minimum credit card payments — but not everyday expenses like groceries.
Down payment available and interest rate work the same way as in the Mortgage Calculator, directly affecting how large a loan the resulting budget can support.
Using the debt-to-income slider deliberately
The DTI slider, typically adjustable between 20% and 45%, controls how much of your income the calculation assumes can go toward total debt including the new mortgage. Moving it toward the lower end produces a more conservative, comfortable estimate; moving it toward the higher end approaches what a lender might approve at the outer edge of typical guidelines.
Running the calculation at two different slider positions — one conservative, one closer to a lender maximum — gives a useful range rather than a single number, which better reflects the real uncertainty in an affordability estimate.