Mortgage Calculator

What a mortgage payment actually includes

PITI stands for Principal, Interest, Tax and Insurance, the four pieces that make up what most lenders mean by a monthly mortgage payment, which is also why this page is sometimes called a piti calculator rather than a plain mortgage payment figure. Principal and interest pay down the loan itself, using the same fixed-rate amortization formula the site’s loan calculator already uses. This is the mortgage payment formula in full:

Property tax and home insurance are separate obligations tied to owning the home; most lenders collect a share of both every month and pay the tax authority and the insurer on your behalf when those bills come due. HOA fees and anything else billed monthly, such as flood insurance or a land lease, pass straight into the total as entered, which is what the Other costs field is for. That makes it a mortgage calculator with HOA fees included, not only a loan figure.

These are all recurring costs, billed for as long as you own the home. A purchase also carries non-recurring closing costs, the one-time fees for loan origination, appraisal and title work, which this mortgage payment calculator does not estimate, since they depend on the lender and the state rather than the loan itself.

Every one of those recurring figures also feeds the full payment schedule below the results: the same month-by-month breakdown a lender’s own amortization table would show, with a running balance, so “how much of my house calculator payment is actually principal” has a real, dated answer rather than a single blended number.

Worked example. A 250,000 home price with a 50,000 down payment is exactly 20% down, so the loan amount is 200,000. At a 6% rate over a 30-year term, the principal-and-interest payment on that loan is 1,199.10 a month. Add 3,000 a year in property tax, 250 a month, and 1,200 a year in home insurance, 100 a month. The full monthly payment comes to 1,549.10, considerably more than the principal-and-interest figure alone. That last step, adding tax and insurance onto the loan payment, is exactly what makes this a mortgage calculator with taxes and insurance built in, rather than a plain loan payment figure.

Mortgage calculator with PMI: how it works and when it applies

PMI, private mortgage insurance, protects the lender, not you, when a smaller down payment leaves less equity in the home. The rule is standard: under 20% down requires PMI, and 20% or more removes it entirely. Run the earlier example with a 25,000 down payment instead of 50,000, 10% down rather than 20%: the loan amount grows to 225,000, and at a 0.5% annual PMI rate the monthly charge is 225,000 times 0.5% divided by twelve, 93.75 a month, on top of principal, interest, tax and insurance. It keeps being charged until enough equity builds up to waive it, or until the loan is paid down or refinanced.

Mortgage calculator with down payment: the fields, the start date and your payoff date

The down payment fields work as a synced pair: type a dollar amount and the percentage fills in from the home price, or type a percentage and the dollar amount fills in instead. The percentage decides whether PMI applies, which is why this home loan calculator asks for a home price and a down payment separately rather than a single loan amount. The start date sets which calendar month the first payment falls in and feeds two outputs: the amortization schedule below shows real dates instead of bare month numbers, and the mortgage payoff date shows the exact month the loan ends, brought forward automatically whenever an extra payment or biweekly schedule shortens the loan.

Extra payment mortgage calculator: paying off a mortgage early

Used as a mortgage calculator with extra payments, three rows, hidden behind “Show extra payments” to keep the default view compact, can all be active at once: a recurring monthly amount, a recurring yearly amount, and a one-time amount. Each reduces the loan’s principal directly, so less interest accrues afterward and the loan finishes sooner than its original term.

The biweekly toggle turns this into a biweekly mortgage calculator too, comparing a different plan: paying half the principal-and-interest payment every two weeks instead of the full payment once a month. Twenty-six half payments a year equal thirteen full monthly payments instead of twelve, one extra payment a year with no separate budgeting decision required.

Paying ahead of schedule has a cost as well as a benefit: extra cash turns into home equity, which is real but illiquid, cannot be invested elsewhere, and a mortgage paid off sooner loses its interest tax deduction sooner too. A small number of loans also charge a prepayment penalty, worth checking before committing to a plan. Refinancing to a shorter term is a related but different move, a new loan with its own closing costs rather than extra payments on the existing one.

Mortgage calculator or loan calculator: which one to use

The site’s loan calculator is the general-purpose tool: a principal, a rate and a term go in, and a monthly payment, total interest and a full amortization schedule come out, with no assumption about property tax, insurance or PMI. This mortgage calculator starts from a home price and a down payment instead, since that split decides both the loan amount and whether PMI applies, then adds every other cost a mortgage typically carries. Rule of thumb: use the loan calculator for what a loan costs a month with no housing costs in the picture, and this mortgage calculator for what you will actually pay every month for a specific home.

Reading the breakdown, and what changes if you adjust the numbers

The result breaks the total into a monthly and a total figure for each line, mortgage payment, property tax, home insurance, PMI, HOA and other costs, so the itemized total and the full cost over the loan’s life are both visible. The loan amount is the home price minus the down payment; principal and interest come from the same amortization formula the loan calculator uses; property tax and home insurance are annual figures divided by twelve; PMI is a percentage of the loan amount, not the home price; HOA and other costs pass through unchanged.

Two levers move the total the most. A larger down payment shrinks the loan amount, can cross the 20% line and remove PMI entirely, and lowers total interest, since interest is always charged on a smaller balance. A shorter term raises the monthly payment but lowers total interest by a wide margin, since fewer months of interest ever accrue. Neither is universally better; changing either number and watching every line update is the fastest way to see what a choice is actually worth.

How rate and term change the payment

Set the term to 30 years and the tool works as a 30 year mortgage calculator; set it to 15 and it becomes a 15 year mortgage calculator. Run both on the same 200,000 loan at 6% and the trade-off is plain. The 30-year payment is 1,199.10 a month and the borrower pays 231,676.00 in interest over the life of the loan. The 15-year payment is 1,687.71 a month, which is 488.61 more, but total interest drops to 103,787.80, a saving of 127,888.20. A 20-year term lands between the two at 1,432.86 a month and 143,886.40 in interest.

The table scales to any loan size: 350,000 at 7% over 30 years is 3.5 times 665.30, or about 2,328.56 a month. Every figure assumes a fixed rate, which makes this a fixed rate mortgage calculator for the whole life of the loan. It does not model an adjustable-rate mortgage, where the lender resets the rate, and so the payment, on a schedule. Terms from 1 to 50 years are accepted, so a 40-year or 50-year loan can be tested the same way.