Use this real estate calculator to estimate either your total monthly home payment (including taxes, insurance, HOA, and PMI) or basic rental property returns like cash flow, NOI, and cap rate.
Advanced options
Loan amount (principal)
Scheduled principal and interest (per month)
Estimated total monthly payment
Monthly payment breakdown
Total interest paid (if you follow the schedule)
Estimated payoff date
First-year summary (principal vs interest)
Notes and warnings
How to use this calculator
- Choose a mode: "Home payment" (buying to live in) or "Rental investment" (buying to rent out).
- Enter the property price and your down payment to get the loan amount (how much you borrow).
- Enter the annual interest rate (APR) and pick the loan term (like 30 years).
- Open "Advanced options" if you want a more realistic total: add property taxes, homeowners insurance, HOA, and PMI (if needed).
- If you plan to pay extra, set the first payment month, payment frequency, and your extra payment amount (and when it starts).
- For Rental investment mode, add rent and vacancy rate (vacancy means the home is empty or rent is not collected).
- Still in Rental mode, enter operating costs like property management, repairs, CapEx reserve (money saved for big replacements), utilities you pay, and other expenses.
- Click Calculate to see the monthly breakdown, total interest and payoff date, and rental metrics (NOI, cap rate, DSCR, cash-on-cash).
- Read any Notes and warnings and double-check units (monthly vs yearly) if something looks way too high or too low.
Methodology
What this calculator does
This tool has two modes. Home payment mode estimates your monthly mortgage payment plus common monthly home costs (taxes, insurance, HOA, PMI). Rental investment mode uses the same loan and home-cost inputs, then adds rent and operating expenses to estimate cash flow and common rental metrics.
Inputs and unit rules (monthly vs annual)
Some costs are naturally yearly (property taxes, homeowners insurance), and some are monthly (HOA, rent). The calculator converts annual dollars to monthly dollars by dividing by 12. Percent inputs are converted to decimals by dividing by 100. Notes and warnings appear if numbers look inconsistent with the units you chose.
Loan amount
Loan amount (principal) = property price minus down payment. If the down payment is bigger than the price, the calculator stops and asks you to fix it.
Scheduled principal and interest (fixed-rate mortgage)
The monthly principal-and-interest payment is computed using the standard fixed-rate amortization payment formula. If the interest rate is 0%, the payment is simply loan amount divided by the number of months in the term.
Homeownership costs and total monthly payment (PITI + HOA + PMI)
Escrow means a monthly amount collected with your mortgage payment to help pay certain bills later (commonly property taxes and homeowners insurance). This calculator estimates those as monthly values.
Property taxes can be entered as either (1) a percent of the property price per year or (2) a yearly dollar amount, then converted to a monthly amount.
Homeowners insurance is entered as a yearly dollar amount and converted to monthly.
HOA is a monthly fee for a homeowners association, if your property has one.
PMI (private mortgage insurance) is an extra cost that is often required when your down payment is under 20%. In this calculator, PMI can be entered as either a percent of the loan per year (converted to monthly) or as a monthly dollar amount. Real PMI rules vary, so treat it as an estimate.
Total monthly payment = principal and interest + monthly property taxes + monthly insurance + HOA + PMI.
Extra payments, payment frequency, and payoff date
Payment frequency can be Monthly (12 payments per year) or Biweekly (26 half-payments per year). To estimate payoff date and total interest with extra payments, the calculator runs a simple balance paydown loop: each period adds interest based on the periodic rate, then applies your scheduled payment plus any extra payment (starting on your chosen month). The payoff date is the month when the balance reaches 0 or below.
First-year summary adds up how much of the first 12 months of payments go to interest and how much reduces the balance (principal). This is why early payments often feel like they are mostly interest.
Rental investment calculations (Rental mode only)
Gross rent is the rent you would collect in a perfect month.
Vacancy rate is the percent of rent you expect to lose to vacancy and non-payment. Effective rent = gross rent times (1 minus vacancy rate).
Operating expenses are costs to run the rental, not including the mortgage. This calculator includes management fee (a percent of collected rent), repairs and maintenance reserve (a percent of gross rent), CapEx reserve (a percent of gross rent for big replacements), owner-paid utilities, other operating expenses, plus the same monthly taxes, insurance, and HOA used above.
NOI (net operating income) is income after operating expenses but before the mortgage: NOI (annual) = (effective monthly rent minus operating expenses) times 12.
Cap rate = annual NOI divided by purchase price, times 100.
Monthly cash flow (after mortgage) = effective monthly rent minus operating expenses minus the monthly principal-and-interest payment.
DSCR (debt service coverage ratio) = annual NOI divided by annual debt service (principal and interest). If there is no loan payment, DSCR is shown as N/A because it is not defined.
Cash-on-cash return (year 1) = (annual cash flow) divided by (cash invested) times 100, where cash invested = down payment + one-time closing costs. If cash invested is 0 or negative, cash-on-cash is shown as N/A.
Hold-period projection (simple estimate)
This tool also estimates a future sale price using appreciation: future value = purchase price times (1 + appreciation rate) raised to the hold period in years. Selling costs are estimated as a percent of the future sale price, and net sale proceeds before any remaining loan balance are future value minus selling costs. This is a simple estimate and does not include income taxes or a full year-by-year amortization sale payoff in the projection.
Definitions
Principal: The amount you borrow (starting loan balance).
Interest: The cost of borrowing money, based on the interest rate and the loan balance.
Amortization: The process of paying a loan down over time with scheduled payments that include both interest and principal.
Escrow: A monthly collection that helps pay certain bills later (often taxes and insurance).
PITI: Principal, interest, taxes, and insurance (often used as a basic total mortgage payment estimate).
PMI: Private mortgage insurance, often required with low down payments.
NOI: Net operating income (rent income after operating expenses, before mortgage).
Cap rate: NOI divided by property price, shown as a percent.
DSCR: NOI divided by mortgage principal-and-interest payments (debt service).
CapEx: Capital expenses, meaning big replacements that wear out over time (like a roof or HVAC).
Important notes
This calculator is an estimate and does not replace lender quotes or a full underwriting model. If your mortgage servicer changes, your payment process can change even if the loan terms do not [1].