Mortgage & Property Calculators

What each of these answers

A mortgage is the largest instalment loan most people ever take, and almost every mistake made with one comes from looking at a single number — the monthly payment — while the decisions that matter sit in the term, the rate and the transaction costs.

The mortgage calculator shows the whole payment rather than the quoted one. On a $400,000 home at 6.5%, principal and interest are about $2,023 a month while the actual payment is $2,572.62 once property tax, insurance and PMI are included. That $550 gap is where first-time budgets break.

The mortgage recast calculator answers what happens when you put a lump sum against the balance and ask the lender to recalculate. A $50,000 payment on a $400,000 balance lowers the payment $337.60 a month — without touching your rate or your payoff date.

Rent vs buy is the one people assume they already know. On a $400,000 home against $2,200 rent, renting is cheaper for the first nine years — and that break-even moves anywhere between year 3 and year 28 depending on house price growth alone.

The one thing worth understanding first

The term is a bigger lever than almost anyone treats it as. On a $320,000 loan at 6.5%, a 30-year term costs $765 a month less than a 15-year — and $226,384 more in interest. Neither is correct in the abstract. What matters is that you can always pay a 30-year mortgage like a 15-year one, and you can never go the other way.

How the three fit together

Run them in this order and each one narrows the next.

1. Rent vs buy first, because it is the only one that can tell you not to proceed. If you might move within a few years, transaction costs alone usually settle it: roughly 3% to buy and 6% to sell is about $36,000 on a $400,000 home, and that has to be recovered before ownership breaks even at all.
2. The mortgage calculator second, on the full payment rather than the quoted one, to see what the term does. Fifteen years against thirty on a $320,000 loan is $765 a month against $226,384 of interest.
3. The recast calculator later, once you own and a lump sum appears. It answers a question the other two cannot: what to do with money that arrives after the loan already exists.

What each cannot tell you

That last gap is the one worth naming. A recast saves about $51,281 in interest on a $50,000 lump sum, while the same money paid as extra principal without recasting saves about $152,562. The calculator shows both; only you can decide whether monthly cash flow is worth the difference.

The mistake that costs the most

Budgeting on the principal-and-interest figure a lender quotes. On the default $400,000 example that number is about $2,023, and the payment that actually leaves your account is $2,572.62. Property tax, insurance and PMI are not optional extras — they are the payment, and every tool here includes them for that reason.