Mortgage Calculator
Estimate Your Monthly Payment with PITI, Taxes & PMI
See your full monthly payment — principal, interest, property tax, insurance, PMI and HOA — plus the true 30-year cost of ownership most calculators hide.
Loan details
Everything recalculates live. No submit button, no sign-up.
Applied: 0.75% property tax · insurance factor 1.1×
Extra payment scenario
Add an extra amount toward principal every month and see what it does.
On a $390,000 loan at 6.85% for 30 years in California.
- Principal & interest$2,556
- Property tax (0.75%)$281
- Homeowners insurance$155
- PMI auto-applied at 13.3% down; drops at 20%$228
- Total PITI$3,219
True cost of ownershipWhat most calculators hide
The full 30-year picture — financing, taxes, insurance, upkeep.
What this calculator actually shows you
Most mortgage calculators stop at principal and interest. That's a fraction of what owning a home actually costs. This tool models the four real components of your monthly payment — known as PITI — plus the long-term expenses that hit your wallet over a 15-, 20-, or 30-year loan.
Principal & interest
Calculated with the standard amortization formula. Early payments are mostly interest; principal accelerates as the balance shrinks.
Property tax
Pulled from realistic per-state effective rates. New Jersey, Illinois, and Texas tend to exceed 1.8%, while Hawaii and Alabama sit under 0.5%.
Homeowners insurance
Estimated from a national baseline and adjusted by state risk factor — Florida and Louisiana run high, Vermont and Oregon run low.
PMI (auto-applied)
If your down payment is under 20%, lenders charge private mortgage insurance — roughly 0.5–1.5% of the loan annually. It drops off automatically at 20% equity.
The "true cost" most buyers underestimate
Over 30 years, a $400,000 mortgage at 6.85% costs roughly $544,000 in interest alone — more than the loan itself. Add property tax, insurance, and the industry rule of thumb that maintenance averages 1% of home value annually, and the true lifetime cost can easily double the purchase price. This calculator surfaces all of it so you can plan honestly.
How to read your mortgage estimate
A monthly payment number on its own doesn't tell you much. The useful part is understanding what drives it, which pieces you control, and which ones will quietly change over the life of the loan. Here's how to actually use the estimate above to make a decision, not just look at a figure.
Principal and interest is the part you lock in
The principal-and-interest portion is the only piece that stays fixed for the whole loan on a standard fixed-rate mortgage. It's set the day you close, based on your loan amount, rate, and term. This is why the interest rate matters so much: on a 30-year loan, even a half-point difference in rate changes what you pay by tens of thousands of dollars over time. When you adjust the rate slider above, watch how the total interest figure moves — that's the real price of waiting for a better rate versus buying now.
The other three parts will change over time
Property tax, insurance, and PMI are estimates today, not fixed costs. Property tax is reassessed periodically and generally rises as your home's assessed value grows. Homeowners insurance premiums have climbed sharply in many states, especially where climate risk is rising. Budgeting off today's numbers alone is optimistic — a realistic buyer assumes these line items drift upward over the years, which is one reason lenders qualify you with some cushion rather than at the absolute edge of your income.
PMI is temporary, and worth planning around
If your down payment is under 20%, you're paying private mortgage insurance — money that protects the lender, not you. The estimate above drops it automatically at 20% equity, but in the real world you have to request cancellation once your loan-to-value ratio hits 80%, and it falls off automatically at 78%. That gap matters: on many loans, actively requesting cancellation the moment you cross 20% equity can save you a year or more of unnecessary PMI payments. If your down payment is close to 20%, it's worth running both scenarios above to see whether stretching to hit that threshold is worth it.
Why the same house costs more in some states
Two buyers with identical loans can have very different monthly payments purely because of where they live. Property tax is the biggest reason. States fund schools and local services differently, so effective rates range from under 0.6% of home value per year in places like Hawaii, Alabama, and Colorado to well over 2% in New Jersey, Illinois, and Texas. On a $400,000 home, that difference alone can be more than $500 a month. Insurance adds another layer — coastal and wildfire-prone states carry higher premiums. Selecting your state above applies a realistic local average so the estimate reflects where you're actually buying.
The mistake most buyers make
The most common budgeting error is anchoring to the principal-and-interest number a lender quotes and treating everything else as an afterthought. In reality, taxes, insurance, PMI, and HOA dues can add 30-50% on top of that base figure — and none of it goes away once the mortgage is paid off. Property tax and insurance are lifetime costs of owning the home. The point of seeing the full PITI breakdown and the true cost of ownership above isn't to scare you off; it's to make sure the number you plan around is the real one, so you're not surprised at closing or stretched thin two years in.
Using this to make a decision
A calculator is only useful if it changes what you do. A few practical ways to use the one above: compare a slightly cheaper home against the one you want, and see whether the monthly difference actually matters to your life. Test what a 15-year term does to both your payment and your total interest — the higher monthly cost often buys enormous long-term savings. Try adding a modest extra monthly payment and watch how many years it removes from the loan. And if PMI is in your estimate, see what reaching 20% down would do. The goal is to walk into a lender conversation already knowing your numbers, rather than being told what you can afford.