How much house can I carry?
Affordability calculator
Most affordability calculators give you a number. This one also tells you which constraint produced it, because that is the thing you can do something about.
A ratio test is not an approval. Credit score, reserves, employment history, property type and automated underwriting all sit behind the number and none of them are modelled here.
Your inputs
Before tax, and the figure a lender would count — not what lands in your account.
Car loans, student loans, minimum card payments, child support. Not utilities or groceries.
The conservative convention. Automated underwriting often allows more.
As a share of value, so it scales with the price the calculator lands on.
Leave at zero to ignore it. Conforming and FHA limits are set per county and change every year — look yours up rather than trusting a number typed into a website.
Your result
Price you could carry
$428,741
$368,741 borrowed, $60,000 down
What is actually limiting you
Your housing-payment ratio is the limit
The payment at that price
Private mortgage insurance (PMI)
Borrower-paid PMI ends automatically when the scheduled balance reaches 78% of the original value (Homeowners Protection Act of 1998); it can be requested at 80%. The rate shown is an illustrative mid-range premium — real pricing depends on credit score, loan-to-value, occupancy and coverage.
Two percentage points either side of your figure. This is why a rate lock matters more than a haggle over the price.
The line steepens once mortgage insurance drops away.
Take this with you
Every number you entered is in the address bar. Copy the link and it opens with your inputs restored — that is how everything else here shares.
What this assumes
- The price is solved in closed form: housing cost is linear in price, so the equation is rearranged and evaluated once rather than searched for.
- Both ratio caps are applied and the tighter one wins — that is the constraint named above.
- Property tax and hazard insurance scale with the price the solve lands on.
- Mortgage insurance follows the programme's rule, and a conventional borrower who lands at or under 80% loan-to-value is not charged any.
- No reserves test, no residual-income test (which VA does apply), no credit overlay.
Demonstration form
Have someone look at it
If this were a working site, this is where the conversation would start.