Maximum loan
$261,417
Enter your income, what you already owe, and your down payment. This calculator returns the maximum home price your debt-to-income ratio supports — after subtracting your own property tax, homeowners insurance and HOA, not before, so the ceiling is the one you could actually carry rather than the one a lender's loan math alone implies.
The monthly housing budget is the debt-to-income ceiling minus existing debt. Property tax, insurance and HOA are subtracted from it before the loan is priced, because those are paid whether or not they amortize the loan.
| DTI cap | Monthly housing budget | Principal & interest left | Maximum loan | Maximum price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28% | $1,740.00 | $1,170.00 | $168,982 | $228,982 |
| 36% | $2,380.00 | $1,810.00 | $261,417 | $321,417 |
| 43% | $2,940.00 | $2,370.00 | $342,298 | $402,298 |
| 50% | $3,500.00 | $2,930.00 | $423,178 | $483,178 |
The calculation runs backwards from your income. The debt-to-income cap gives a maximum total monthly debt payment; existing debts are subtracted, and what remains is the monthly housing budget. The difference from a standard affordability tool is the next step: your own property tax, homeowners insurance and HOA are taken out of that budget first, and only the remainder — the principal and interest — is used to price the loan. On the defaults a $8,000 income with $500 of existing debt leaves a $2,380 monthly housing budget at a 36% cap; after subtracting $450 of tax and $120 of insurance, $1,810 is left for principal and interest, which supports a loan of $261,417 and a purchase price of $321,417.
r — monthly interest rate, the annual rate divided by 12n — number of monthly payments, term in years multiplied by 12The affordability tool built into the search results treats the entire monthly housing budget as principal and interest. It does not reserve anything for property tax, insurance, mortgage insurance or HOA — the items that are usually bundled into the same monthly payment. For a typical buyer that omission is large: on the defaults the real ceiling is $321,417, while the principal-and-interest-only figure is $403,742, about 20% higher.
That gap is exactly why a pre-approval can feel too generous. The lender's math prices only the loan; your bank account pays tax, insurance and association dues on top. The two numbers answer different questions — one is the largest loan the ratio permits, the other is the largest price you could actually carry — and only the second one tells you whether the house fits your life.
This page returns the second number. It is the same debt-to-income logic, minus your own tax, insurance and HOA, in one price you can hand to a budget.
The cap is a lender's policy choice, not yours, and it moves the answer more than almost anything else you control. The table below prices the default household — $8,000 income, $500 debt, $60,000 down, 7.40% over 30 years, with $450 of tax and $120 of insurance subtracted before each loan is priced.
| DTI cap | Housing budget | P&I left | Maximum loan | Maximum price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 28% | $1,740.00 | $1,170.00 | $168,982 | $228,982 |
| 36% | $2,380.00 | $1,810.00 | $261,417 | $321,417 |
| 43% | $2,940.00 | $2,370.00 | $342,298 | $402,298 |
| 50% | $3,500.00 | $2,930.00 | $423,178 | $483,178 |
Gross monthly income $8,000, existing debt $500, $60,000 down, 7.40% over 30 years, $450 tax + $120 insurance subtracted before pricing
The spread between the top and bottom of that table is $254,196 on unchanged income and unchanged cash. Nothing about the household changed — what changed is the ratio the lender was willing to accept. Note that the 28% and 36% rows carry the traditional 28/36 rule, and the gap between them is itself about $92,000, larger than most households can close by shopping a rate.
Everything on this page is reproducible. For the default household the 36% housing budget is $8,000 × 0.36 − $500 = $2,380. Subtract the $450 tax and $120 insurance you entered and $1,810 remains for principal and interest.
Change any input and the figure recomputes; if your own arithmetic differs by more than a few dollars, one of the two implementations is wrong and the corrections page explains how to report it.
No. The tool shown in search results treats the whole monthly housing budget as principal and interest. This page subtracts your property tax, homeowners insurance and HOA first, so the headline price is the one you could actually carry, not the larger loan-only figure.
PITI is principal, interest, taxes and insurance — the four components most lenders collect together through escrow, with HOA dues a fifth where they apply. This calculator reserves tax, insurance and HOA out of the budget before pricing the loan, which is the opposite of the usual single-number affordability tool.
Because most tools, including the one in search results, treat housing cost as principal and interest only. Property tax, insurance and HOA are billed separately and frequently omitted, which is why the same income can support a $403,742 price in a loan-only model and a $321,417 price once tax and insurance are subtracted. On typical defaults the difference is about 20%.
Yes. They are set by your local jurisdiction and insurer, not by the loan, so this page asks you to enter them rather than guessing. Pull the tax from your local assessor and the insurance from a quote; once entered they stay editable so you can test scenarios and watch the ceiling move.
How Much House Can I Afford? (PITI — Tax, Insurance and HOA Included) lists each external figure it uses once, with the publisher that issues it and the date it was retrieved. The calculator takes these as its defaults, so any of them can be replaced with a number of your own; a figure that is not in the list is one this page did not take from anywhere.
| Figure | Value | Published by | Retrieved |
|---|---|---|---|
| 30-year fixed mortgage national average | 7.40% | Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey (PMMS) | 2026-10-08 |
Values are the ones this page is built with, not a live feed. Where a figure is revised on a schedule, the retrieval date above is when it was read, and the next scheduled refresh is shown at the top of the page.
Related calculatorsHow much house can I afford (principal & interest) · True monthly payment (PITI + HOA) · Mortgage payment calculator · Down payment calculator · PMI removal date calculator · Extra payment calculator · Refinance break-even · Closing cost calculator · FHA monthly payment (with MIP) · FHA affordability (with MIP)
Cluster us/mortgage · Unit us-mortgage-affordability-piti · Engine amortizing-loan / affordability · Method: The housing budget is gross monthly income times the debt-to-income cap minus existing debt. Before the loan is priced, the buyer's own monthly property tax, homeowners insurance and HOA are subtracted from that budget; the remainder is the principal-and-interest payment the loan can support, inverted through the amortizing-loan formula. The maximum price adds the down payment. This is the inverse of the true monthly payment page, which starts from a loan and adds the same tax, insurance and HOA on top.