Home affordability calculator
How much house can you afford? Enter your income, debts, down payment and rate — we apply the standard 28%/36% guidelines and show the home price and loan they imply. No sign-up, no email, attached to no lender.
Rate prefilled with today’s ~30-yr average (7.424%) from our live board — edit freely.
How much house can I afford?
Affordability comes down to two lender guidelines. The front-end ratio says your housing payment (principal, interest, taxes, insurance, plus HOA/PMI) should stay near 28% of gross monthly income. The back-end ratio says all your monthly debt — housing plus car, card and loan payments — should stay near 36%. We take the smaller of the two payment caps, subtract taxes, insurance and HOA to get the principal-and-interest you can support, invert the mortgage formula at your rate and term to get the loan, and add your down payment to reach a home price.
Why it is a starting point, not a promise
Real approval depends on your credit score, cash reserves, employment, and the specific loan program — many allow back-end ratios well above 36%. Treat this as the conservative edge of your range, then run the exact payment on a target price.
A worked example
Say you earn $120,000 a year — $10,000 gross a month — with $500 in existing monthly debt payments and $60,000 saved for a down payment. The 28% front-end rule caps housing at $2,800/month; the 36% back-end rule caps total debt at $3,600, which after your $500 of other debt leaves $3,100 for housing. The smaller cap — $2,800 — binds. Subtract the monthly share of property tax (say $300) and insurance ($117) and you have roughly $2,383 for principal and interest. At a 30-year term and today’s rate that supports a loan in the high-$300,000s; add your $60,000 down and you land around a $425,000–$450,000 home. Change any input and the chain recomputes — that is the whole point of seeing which rule binds.
What trips people up
- Forgetting PMI. Put down less than 20% and private mortgage insurance is added on top of PITI, shrinking what you can afford. Keep the down payment at or above 20% of the result to stay out of PMI.
- Using take-home pay. The 28/36 ratios run on gross (pre-tax) income — the figure lenders use. Entering your net paycheck understates what you qualify for.
- Maxing the number. Qualifying for a payment and comfortably carrying it are different things. Leave room for maintenance, reserves, and life — the top of this range is a ceiling, not a target.
Common questions
How much house can I afford?
A common guideline keeps your housing payment near 28% of gross monthly income (the front-end ratio) and your total debts — housing plus car, card and loan payments — near 36% (the back-end ratio). This calculator finds the largest payment that fits both, then works backward through taxes, insurance and your rate to the home price it implies. It is a rule of thumb, not a qualification.
What is the 28/36 rule?
It is a lending rule of thumb: spend no more than 28% of gross monthly income on housing (PITI) and no more than 36% on total monthly debt. Many loan programs allow higher back-end ratios (43% or more), so this is a conservative starting point, not a hard limit.
Does a bigger down payment let me afford more?
Yes — a larger down payment means a smaller loan for the same home price (and can remove PMI above 20% down), so more of your affordable payment buys home rather than covering the loan.
By L.W. Martin, Founder — 20 years in the mortgage business, including 15 running his own brokerage. About → · Updated September 2026.