If you’re looking for a basic mortgage payment calculator, you’ve come to the right place. The calculator below will give you the monthly principal and interest payment after inputting just a little bit of information.
This can come in handy if you find other loan calculators too complex, or just want to run some quick loan scenarios. It also doubles as a mortgage amortization calculator if you tick the “Show payment schedule” box. You’ll be able to view the entire amortization table.
A Simple and Easy to Use Mortgage Payment Calculator
- This calculator will quickly compute a monthly mortgage payment
- Including principal and interest
- Useful if you’re considering a refinance and want to know the monthly savings
- Or if you want to calculate payments for a potential home purchase
How to Use the Mortgage Payment Calculator
- For a home purchase enter the price and down payment
- For a refinance enter the remaining loan balance and “0” for down payment
- Then enter the proposed loan term and interest rate
- Tick show payment schedule to see the monthly payment breakdown and full amortization of the loan
To start, simply enter the purchase price and down payment. If you know the home you’re going to buy will cost $400,000, enter that, then the proposed down payment, either in dollars or by percentage. A common down payment is 20%, which is required to avoid mortgage insurance, but a lot of home buyers come in with much less.
For example, conventional home loans only require 3% down nowadays, and FHA loans only require 3.5% down if you have a minimum 580 FICO score.
If you’re attempting to compute an existing loan or a potential mortgage refinance, just enter the current/proposed loan amount in the home price field and enter a “0” for the down payment.
For example, if your original loan amount was $340,000, just enter that in the home price field and enter zero for the down payment. Or if your refinance loan will have a certain lower loan amount below the original loan amount, enter it there and put zero for down payment.
Next, simply enter the mortgage interest rate and hit compute. The mortgage calculator defaults to a 30-year mortgage term, which the majority of homeowners have. If you have a 15-year term, simply change that field to “15” instead.
It works as both a 30-year mortgage calculator and a 15-year mortgage calculator, as well as anything in between if you happen to have say a 10- or 20-year mortgage. You can enter any amount of years or months and it will compute your monthly mortgage payment properly.
You can also use the monthly payment calculator for mortgages with adjustable rates, at least for the initial period when they’re fixed. So all loan options and loan types can be computed.
Once you click compute, it will display your monthly mortgage amount, total amount financed less any down payment, total payments over the entire loan term, and total mortgage interest paid over the life of the loan.
If you want to see the amortization schedule, simply tick the “Show payment schedule” box and you’ll see every monthly payment broken down by interest and principal, along with the remaining balance leftover each month, and total interest paid.
Get Your Third-Party Costs from the Source!
- This monthly payment calculator only considers the home loan costs
- Don’t forget about things like property taxes, home insurance, and PMI
- Which can greatly increase your total monthly housing expense
- If possible get these figures direct from the source to avoid any surprises!
Note that this mortgage payment calculator doesn’t include property tax, homeowners insurance, mortgage insurance, or any HOA fees that might also be charged to make up your total monthly payments.
If you want an accurate picture of all home loan costs, be sure to include those estimated monthly payments so you know your true total monthly outlay. It’s often best to get those costs from the source instead of merely ballparking or taking a third-party website’s word for it (or your loan officer’s).
A mortgage calculator with taxes may just be using some average percentage for all homes, even if they’re actually taxed quite differently.
For example, if it’s a purchase loan, get property tax information directly from the county assessor, HOA dues direct from the Board, insurance premiums from the insurance company, and PMI from the lender once they’ve actually talked to the PMI company.
For FHA loans, make sure both the upfront and annual insurance premiums are factored in to the monthly mortgage payment.
If it’s a mortgage refinance, you should know your property tax payments and insurance already.
You may also want to input mortgage rates slightly above today’s mortgage rates just in cases rates rise in the interim. This will give you a cushion in case you’re unable to obtain that lower interest rate for whatever reason.
Also see: How much house can I afford calculator
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- Mortgage Rates Don’t Move in a Straight Line Up or Down - October 8, 2024