House Affordability Calculator Guide: Price, Income & DTI
A complete overview of the House Affordability Calculator — max home price, required income, DTI limits, and the full payment breakdown.
Affordability isn't just a mortgage payment — it's income, debt, down payment, tax, insurance, and two separate DTI limits, all interacting at once. This calculator runs the full picture from one set of inputs.
What it calculates
- Find max home price: income + debts + down payment → the highest price a lender would typically qualify you for, respecting both DTI caps.
- Find required income: a target home price + debts + down payment → the income needed to qualify, again respecting both caps.
- Full payment breakdown: principal & interest, property tax, insurance, and HOA shown separately, not just a single combined number.
- Binding constraint: tells you directly whether front-end or back-end DTI is what's actually limiting your result.
Why the defaults are editable
28%/36% DTI caps and a 30-year term are standard conventional guidelines, but real loan programs and lenders vary — switch to Custom to match an actual pre-approval letter or a specific program's limits instead of the generic defaults.
Once you have a target price, our Mortgage Calculator builds out the full amortization schedule for it.