Home Affordability Calculator
From your income, debts, down payment, and mortgage rate, see the home price you can actually afford — the lender's maximum next to a comfortable number, a full PITI breakdown, and how much you'd have left over each month. Approval isn't the same as affordable.
Loading the calculator…
How much house can you really afford?
Lenders don't start with a home price — they start with your income and work backward through two debt-to-income (DTI) limits. The front-end ratio caps your housing payment alone (often 28–37% of gross income). The back-end ratio caps housing plus your car, student, and credit-card payments (often 36–50%). The stricter of the two becomes your monthly housing budget.
That budget has to cover the whole payment — not just the loan:
- Principal & interest on the loan, which is the price minus your down payment.
- Property tax and insurance, which scale with the home's value and vary a lot by location.
- PMI when you put down less than 20%, plus any monthly HOA dues.
Because every piece except principal & interest grows with the price, the calculator solves for the exact home price where the full payment fills your budget. Then it does the part most tools skip: it shows a comfortable price near 25% of income beside the lender's max, the cash you'd keep each month at each, and how the number moves if you pay down debt, add to your down payment, or rates fall.
Common questions
- Why is the comfortable price lower than what a lender would approve?
- A lender's maximum can push housing past 40% of your gross income, leaving little for income taxes, retirement, and emergencies. The comfortable number keeps housing closer to 25% of income, so more is left over each month. Both are shown side by side — being approved for a number isn't the same as it fitting your life.
- What counts as "other monthly debts"?
- The recurring minimum payments a lender sees on your credit report — car loans, student loans, credit-card minimums, personal loans, and the like. They don't reduce your housing budget directly, but they raise your back-end DTI, which can become the stricter cap. Paying some off can meaningfully raise the price you qualify for; the calculator shows by how much.
- Is anything saved or sent anywhere?
- No. Every number runs in your browser. Nothing you type is uploaded, stored, or shared — and you can export the full price-by-payment table to CSV with one click.
Knowing the number is step one
Taly auto-splits every paycheck across your budget — so the down payment grows on its own and the monthly housing number stays comfortable, not just approvable. Your paycheck does the math.