Mortgage Calculator
The whole payment split into principal, interest, property tax, home insurance and mortgage insurance
Loan and running costs
Shared by both modes. Overwrite every default with a real quote or a real tax bill.
Enter a price, a term and a rate to see the payment split.
Five parts, five different lifespans
A fixed rate mortgage fixes exactly one thing, the principal and interest figure. Three of the five parts of the payment move after you sign, and one of them stops altogether. This is what each part is and what it does next.
| Part of the payment | Set by | Typical size | What it does over time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Principal | The amortisation schedule | A sliver at first, most of the payment at the end | Grows every month |
| Interest | Rate applied to the opening balance | Most of the payment at the start | Shrinks every month |
| Property tax | Your county assessor | 0.90% of value on the unweighted state average, 1.88% in New Jersey and Illinois, 0.29% in Hawaii | Reassessed yearly |
| Home insurance | Your insurer, priced on rebuild cost | $2,808 a year nationally at $300,000 of dwelling coverage, $6,432 in Florida, $924 in Vermont | Requoted yearly |
| Mortgage insurance | The insurer your lender picks | 0.46% to 1.50% a year of the original loan, sliding with credit score | Ends at 78% LTV |
Property tax figures are Tax Foundation effective rates on owner-occupied housing built from 2024 Census data, read September 2026. Insurance averages are 2026 Insurify figures. Mortgage insurance pricing is the Urban Institute band. All three move yearly, so treat them as a starting point and type your own in.
| Route off mortgage insurance | Trigger | Who acts | Conditions |
|---|---|---|---|
| Written request | Balance scheduled to reach 80% of original value | You ask | In writing, current with a good payment history, no junior liens, value has not fallen |
| Automatic termination | Balance scheduled to reach 78% of original value | Servicer must act | You must be current on the date, otherwise it ends once you catch up |
| Midpoint backstop | The month after the midpoint of the schedule, year 15 on a 30 year loan | Servicer must act | Applies even if the balance is still above 78% |
| Paying ahead | Extra principal pulls the 80% date forward | You ask | The automatic dates follow the original schedule, so this one has to be requested |
| FHA loans | A different rulebook | Often never | The annual premium runs for the life of the loan under 10% down, and 11 years at 10% or more |
Cancellation rules are the Homeowners Protection Act thresholds as published by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, read September 2026. They are statute, so they do not drift the way a rate does.
The arithmetic behind each bar
Every bar on the calculator comes from one of these lines. None of them needs more than a phone calculator once you know which number goes where.
- Principal and interest c = P · r(1+r)ⁿ ÷ ((1+r)ⁿ − 1) P is the loan, r is the annual rate divided by 12, n is the term in months. When r is zero this collapses to P divided by n.
- Interest inside one payment i = opening balance × r Work this out first. Whatever is left of c after i comes off the balance, which is why the split moves every month.
- Monthly property tax t = assessed value × tax rate ÷ 12 The assessor reassesses, so this line is a yearly estimate rather than a fixed cost.
- Monthly home insurance h = annual premium ÷ 12 The premium follows the cost of rebuilding the house, not what you paid for it.
- Monthly mortgage insurance m = original loan × PMI rate ÷ 12 Charged on the loan you started with rather than today's balance, right up until it terminates.
- Loan to value LTV = balance ÷ original value Original value is the lower of the purchase price and the appraisal at closing. Later appreciation does not count towards the automatic dates.
- Total monthly payment PITI = c + t + h + m The five bars are this line, with c split into its principal and interest halves.
- Break-even on points months = cost of the points ÷ monthly saving One point costs 1% of the loan. Sell or refinance before the break-even month and the points were a loss.
A mortgage payment is five things, not one
What each part of PITI costs, which parts move after you sign, and the month mortgage insurance stops.
The figure a lender actually collects each month is rarely the figure a mortgage calculator prints. The collected figure is PITI, principal, interest, taxes and insurance, with mortgage insurance bolted on while you still owe more than eighty percent of what the property is worth. This calculator shows all five parts as proportional bars rather than one headline number, because the useful question about a mortgage payment is not how big it is. It is which part of it is which, and which parts are going to change.
What is actually inside the payment
Principal is the slice that buys the house. Interest is rent on the money. Together they form the one figure a fixed rate genuinely fixes, and on a thirty year fixed loan that number is identical in month one and month three hundred and sixty. The other three parts are not fixed at all. Property tax is struck by your county assessor and reassessed on its own cycle. Home insurance is repriced at every renewal. Mortgage insurance is charged until your balance crosses a statutory threshold, and then it stops for good.
Because those last three are bills owed to other people, lenders usually collect them through an escrow account, called an impound account in some states. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau describes the mechanism simply: the servicer takes the money monthly and pays the tax and insurance bills when they fall due. The consequence is the part people miss. When those bills move, your payment moves with them, fixed rate or not. An escrow analysis letter in year three that raises a payment you thought was locked is not an error. It is the system working exactly as designed.
Why the first two bars keep trading places
Interest in any given month is the opening balance multiplied by one twelfth of the annual rate. Whatever is left over from the principal and interest figure comes off the balance. At the start the balance is at its largest, so almost the whole payment is interest and the principal bar is a sliver. By the closing years the balance is small, the interest bar is thin and nearly everything goes to principal. That is the whole of amortisation in two sentences, and this page leaves the rest of it alone. If you want the payment by payment schedule, the loan calculator owns that, along with the difference between the nominal rate and the APR.
What matters here is that a payment split shown for month one is a photograph, not a portrait. Use the control above the bars to jump to year six or year sixteen and the same loan looks like a different product. Most calculators on this search never show this, which is why so many buyers are surprised at how little of the first few years went anywhere useful.
Mortgage insurance, and the date it stops
Private mortgage insurance is what a lender buys when your down payment is under twenty percent of the price. It is worth being blunt about who it serves. The CFPB puts it in four words: PMI protects the lender. If you fall behind you can still lose the house, and the insurance pays the lender, not you. Pricing runs from roughly 0.46 percent to 1.50 percent of the original loan amount a year on the Urban Institute band, sliding with credit score, so on a $357,000 loan that is somewhere between about $137 and $446 a month.
The good news is that it has a legislated ending. Under the Homeowners Protection Act there are three exits. You may ask in writing for cancellation on the date your balance is scheduled to fall to eighty percent of the original value, provided you are current, have a clean payment history, carry no junior liens and the property has not lost value. The servicer must terminate it without being asked once the scheduled balance reaches seventy eight percent. And regardless of the balance, it must end the month after the midpoint of the amortisation schedule, which is year fifteen of a thirty year loan. That last rule is the one nobody publishes, and on a high rate loan with a small down payment it is the rule that actually bites first.
Note the phrase scheduled balance. The automatic dates follow the schedule you signed, not the balance you have actually reached. Paying extra principal pulls the eighty percent request date forward, but you have to ask. Nobody will volunteer it. FHA loans play by an entirely different rulebook: the annual premium runs for the life of the loan if you put less than ten percent down, and for eleven years if you put down more.
How much to put down
Twenty percent is the number everyone quotes, and it is the point at which mortgage insurance never appears at all. It is also not what most buyers do. In the 2025 National Association of Realtors buyer profile the median down payment was nineteen percent across all buyers, but ten percent for first time buyers and twenty three percent for repeat buyers, who are usually rolling equity out of a previous home. Conventional products go as low as three percent and FHA to three and a half percent at a 580 score. A smaller down payment buys you the house sooner and costs you mortgage insurance plus interest on a larger balance in exchange. Run both in the calculator and compare the total interest line rather than the monthly one.
Points, and the only sum that settles them
One discount point costs one percent of the loan and typically buys about a quarter of a percentage point off the rate, though the exchange is set by the lender rather than by any rule. Freddie Mac's own worked example moves a $300,000 loan from 6.25 percent to 6.00 percent for $3,000, saving roughly $48 a month. Divide the cost by the saving and you get the break-even in months, about sixty three in that case. Sell or refinance before then and the points were simply money spent. Freddie Mac's research found no significant average benefit to buying them, which is a polite way of saying most people do not stay long enough.
What the payment still leaves out
A payment figure is not a cost of ownership figure. Homeowners association dues are typically paid straight to the association rather than through escrow, so they sit outside this calculation entirely, and calculator.net puts them at usually under one percent of property value a year. Maintenance runs to one percent of value a year or more and no escrow account collects it. Closing costs land at about three to five percent of the loan and are paid once, in cash, on top of the down payment. Flood insurance, where it is required, is a separate policy.
On affordability, the old lender guideline is the 28/36 rule: housing under twenty eight percent of gross monthly income, all debt payments under thirty six percent. It is a guideline, not a law, and many conventional lenders will approve a debt to income ratio up to forty five percent. The budget tab on this calculator works the same problem from the other end, taking the monthly figure you are willing to pay and returning the price it carries. If the question underneath all of this is whether to buy at all, the rent versus buy calculator is the one that answers it.
One last habit worth forming. Every default in this tool is a placeholder with a date behind it, not a quote. Rates move weekly, tax rates and insurance premiums move yearly. Type in your own tax bill and your own insurance quote before you trust any total you see here.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does PITI stand for and what is inside it?
PITI is principal, interest, taxes and insurance, the four things a lender collects in one monthly payment. Principal and interest repay the loan. Taxes are your property tax, paid to the county. Insurance is your homeowners policy. On a loan with less than twenty percent down there is a fifth item, private mortgage insurance, which is why some lenders write PITI plus MI, and Chase writes PITIA to fold in association assessments as well.
The distinction that matters is that only principal and interest are fixed by a fixed rate mortgage. The tax and insurance lines are estimates of someone else's bill, and they are re-estimated every year.
When does PMI fall off, and can I make it happen sooner?
Under the Homeowners Protection Act there are three exits. You may request cancellation in writing on the date your balance is scheduled to reach eighty percent of the original value, as long as you are current, have a good payment history, have no second mortgage or other junior lien, and the property has not fallen in value. Your servicer must terminate it automatically at seventy eight percent. And it must end the month after the midpoint of your amortisation schedule, year fifteen on a thirty year loan, whatever the balance says.
To make it happen sooner, pay extra principal. That moves the real balance ahead of the scheduled one, but the automatic dates still follow the original schedule, so you have to put the request in writing yourself. The calculator prints both dates for the numbers you enter.
Why did my escrow payment go up when I have a fixed rate?
Because a fixed rate fixes only the principal and interest part. Your escrow account holds money for property tax and homeowners insurance, and those are bills from your county and your insurer, not from your lender. When the assessor raises your assessment or the insurer raises the premium, the servicer runs an escrow analysis and resets the monthly collection to cover the new total, usually with a catch-up for any shortfall.
Three of the five parts of the payment move this way. Only principal and interest stand still, which is why a payment quoted at closing is a starting point rather than a promise.
Do I really need twenty percent down on a house?
No, but twenty percent is the line where private mortgage insurance disappears entirely, because the loan opens at or below eighty percent of value. Conventional products go down to three percent and FHA to three and a half percent at a 580 credit score, with ten percent required below that.
What buyers actually do sits in between. The 2025 National Association of Realtors profile puts the median down payment at nineteen percent across all buyers, ten percent for first time buyers and twenty three percent for repeat buyers moving equity from a previous home. Put a smaller amount down and you pay mortgage insurance for a while and interest on a larger balance. Run both and compare the total interest, not the monthly figure.
How do I estimate the property tax line before I have a bill?
Multiply the price by an effective tax rate and divide by twelve. For a first pass, the unweighted average effective rate on owner-occupied housing across the fifty states is about 0.90 percent, on Tax Foundation figures built from 2024 Census data. The spread is enormous, though: New Jersey and Illinois sit at 1.88 percent while Hawaii is 0.29 percent and Alabama 0.37 percent, and counties inside one state can differ widely.
So use 0.90 percent only to sketch. The real number is on the county assessor's site for the exact parcel, and it is worth checking whether a sale triggers a reassessment where you are buying, because the seller's current bill may be nothing like yours.
Why is my homeowners insurance quote nothing like the national average?
Two reasons. First, averages are quoted at a fixed level of dwelling coverage, not at a purchase price. The 2026 national average of $2,808 a year is for $300,000 of dwelling coverage, and dwelling coverage is the cost of rebuilding the house, which has very little to do with what the land and location cost you.
Second, geography dominates everything else. The same study puts Florida at $6,432 a year and Vermont at $924. Any calculator that estimates your premium as a percentage of the purchase price is guessing at both of these at once, which is why this one asks for the annual premium in dollars instead.
Are mortgage points worth buying?
Only if you stay long enough. One discount point costs one percent of the loan and typically buys about a quarter of a percentage point off the rate, though the exchange rate is set by the lender and the market rather than by any rule. Work out the break-even: divide what the points cost by what they save each month.
Freddie Mac's worked example takes a $300,000 loan from 6.25 to 6.00 percent for $3,000 and saves about $48 a month, which is a break-even a little over five years out. Sell or refinance before then and the money is gone. Freddie Mac's own research found no significant average benefit to buying points, largely because people move sooner than they expect to.
What monthly payment can I actually afford?
The lender guideline is the 28/36 rule: keep housing costs under twenty eight percent of gross monthly income and all debt payments under thirty six percent. On $8,000 a month gross that is $2,240 of housing and $2,880 of total debt. It is a guideline rather than a law, and many conventional lenders will go to a debt to income ratio of forty five percent.
Approval and affordability are different questions, though. The 28 percent test is run on PITI, so it already includes tax, insurance and mortgage insurance, but it does not include maintenance, association dues or the cash you spent at closing. The budget tab on this calculator starts from a monthly figure you choose and tells you what price it carries.
Why is the payment my lender quoted higher than this one?
Usually because of something that sits outside PITI. Homeowners association dues are the most common, and they are normally paid to the association rather than through escrow, so they are not in this calculation at all. Flood insurance is a separate policy where it is required. A loan with a rate lock expiry, a buydown, or an FHA upfront premium of 1.75 percent rolled into the balance will also land differently.
The other common gap is timing. A lender quote includes an escrow cushion and prepaid items at closing, and closing costs themselves run to roughly three to five percent of the loan on top of your down payment. Compare the quote line by line against the five bars here and the difference will be one of these.