First-time buyers · Moving up · Investors
Find out what your next home really costs.
Answer a few short questions and get a straight answer — what you can afford, what your equity can do, and what the payment actually is once taxes, insurance and the rest of your debt are counted. Every number stays in your browser. Nothing is sent anywhere.
The bottom line
What sets your ceiling
Two limits apply, and the lower one wins. Knowing which is binding tells you what to fix.
What you'd pay each month
Owning against renting, with everything a mortgage payment actually includes.
View as a table
Cash to close
The number that actually decides when you can buy.
Is buying better than renting?
Your net position each way: what you'd hold, less what you spent to get there. Renting assumes you invest the cash you didn't put down.
View as a table
Does it cash flow?
The operating statement, the way a lender and an underwriter read it.
Where the rent goes
Every dollar of collected rent, split between operating costs, the mortgage, and what's left.
View as a table
What you'd make holding it
Three sources of return: cash flow, the tenant paying down your loan, and appreciation.
View as a table
What you'd owe every month
Housing plus every consumer debt payment — the number that actually hits your account.
View as a table
What you can buy without paying more
Where your equity goes
View as a table
Interest you'd pay either way
Cumulative interest across your mortgage and your consumer debt — staying put versus moving and consolidating.
View as a table
Or keep it and rent it out
Marry the house, date the rate
Pay it off faster
If the rate were different
Want us to check these numbers with you?
Send this to the HB Mortgage Team and we'll come back with what you actually qualify for. No cost and no obligation — and your answers from this page come with it, so you won't have to repeat yourself.
Talk it through
These numbers are a starting point. A loan officer can turn them into a real pre-approval, and an agent can turn your home value into a real listing price.
About these numbers
SmartEquity is an educational planning tool. Every figure on this page is an estimate produced from the information entered above. It is not a loan approval, a commitment to lend, a locked interest rate, an appraisal, or a guarantee of any sale price. Actual payments, cash to close, proceeds, taxes, insurance, mortgage insurance and interest costs are determined by your lender, title company, insurer and taxing authority, and will differ.
Payments shown include principal, interest, estimated property taxes, insurance, HOA dues and mortgage insurance where applicable. Multi-year totals stop counting a debt once it retires, stop mortgage insurance at 78% of the purchase price on the scheduled amortization, and escalate taxes and insurance at the rate you set. FHA loans with less than 10% down carry mortgage insurance for the life of the loan rather than terminating — confirm which program applies to you. Balances marked as revolving are billed at a floating minimum of roughly 1% of the balance plus interest, so a payment entered below that figure is raised to what an issuer would actually bill.
Debt-to-income figures follow the common convention of excluding installment debt with ten or fewer payments remaining, and of crediting 75% of gross rent against the full payment on a home you keep and rent out. Underwriting guidelines vary by program, lender and borrower, and only a lender can tell you what you qualify for. This tool does not track conforming loan limits, does not apply any income tax treatment — the mortgage interest and property tax deductions are not modeled, and neither is tax on investment returns in the rent-versus-buy comparison — and does not account for capital gains, depreciation or the tax treatment of rental property. Refinancing is modeled on an assumed future rate that may never be available; no one can promise a future rate. Appreciation, rent growth and investment return assumptions are yours to set and are inherently uncertain. Paying off consumer debt with mortgage proceeds converts unsecured debt into debt secured by your home, and extending a balance over a longer term can increase total interest even when the monthly payment falls. Consult your loan officer, tax advisor and real estate professional before acting.
This tool is provided by the HB Mortgage Team, powered by Edge Home Finance, LLC, NMLS #891464 (www.nmlsconsumeraccess.org). Hunter Bolling, NMLS #1920274. Shelbi Bolling, NMLS #2642686. Questions about anything on this page can go to Shelbi.bolling@edgehomefinance.com.
Equal Housing Opportunity. Not a commitment to lend. All loans subject to credit approval.