How Much House Can I Afford?
Estimate a home price that fits your income, existing debts and monthly housing costs—then see how a higher or lower mortgage rate changes the result.
Estimate your home-buying range
Change the assumptions below. The primary result uses a planning-oriented housing budget and also respects a total debt-to-income limit.
Your finances
Mortgage assumptions
Property costs
Comfortable scenario breakdown
Estimated loan amount —
Estimated down payment —
Mortgage principal & interest —
Property tax —
Home insurance —
HOA —
PMI —
Total housing cost —
Housing ratio —
Total DTI —
How rates affect your estimated affordable home price
Keeps the same overall housing-budget limits while recalculating the mortgage payment and other price-dependent housing costs. This is different from a P&I-only purchasing-power comparison.
Affordability is more than the mortgage payment
A home payment can include principal and interest, property taxes, homeowners insurance, homeowners association dues and, for some loans, mortgage insurance. Existing monthly debt also matters because it reduces the room available in a household budget.
How this calculator estimates a home price
The calculator starts with gross monthly household income and applies both a housing-cost limit and a total debt-to-income limit. It uses the lower available housing budget, subtracts estimated insurance and HOA costs, then solves backward for a home price using the mortgage rate, loan term, property-tax rate, down payment and PMI assumption.
The Comfortable, Stretch and Higher-DTI outputs are scenarios—not promises of approval. The higher scenario is intentionally labeled as such rather than presented as a maximum a lender will approve.
Why mortgage rates change purchasing power
With the same monthly budget, a higher interest rate generally supports a smaller mortgage and therefore a lower estimated home price. The rate comparison keeps your other assumptions the same and changes only the mortgage rate by one percentage point in either direction.
What this estimate does not include
Real-life homeownership also involves utilities, repairs, maintenance, moving expenses, closing costs and other priorities such as emergency savings and retirement contributions. Those items are not included in the affordability ratios used by this calculator, so consider them separately before making a purchase decision.