What is included in a monthly mortgage payment?

Most monthly mortgage payments include four things, known together as PITI: principal, interest, property taxes and homeowners insurance. Taxes and insurance are usually collected by the lender into an escrow account and paid on your behalf. If the property is in a homeowners association you also pay an HOA fee, though that normally goes directly to the association rather than through your lender. Private mortgage insurance is added when the down payment is under 20%.

How much house can I afford?

A common guideline is that total housing costs stay under 28% of gross monthly income, and that all debt payments together stay under 36%. On a $120,000 salary that is roughly $2,800 a month for housing and $3,600 for all debts combined. The affordability calculator works this out from your income, existing debts and down payment.

How much should I put down on a house?

Twenty percent is the threshold that removes private mortgage insurance on a conventional loan, which typically saves 0.5%–1.5% of the loan amount every year. It is not a requirement: conventional loans can go to 3%, FHA loans to 3.5%, and VA and USDA loans to zero for those who qualify. A smaller down payment means a larger loan, a higher payment and more interest overall.

Is a 30-year mortgage cheaper than a 15-year mortgage?

Cheaper each month, far more expensive in total. A $320,000 loan at 6.5% costs about $2,023 a month over 30 years and roughly $408,000 in interest. The same loan over 15 years costs about $2,787 a month but only around $182,000 in interest. The 15-year term also usually carries a slightly lower rate. Which is right depends on whether the monthly headroom is worth more to you than the lifetime saving.

Does this calculator include PMI?

No. Private mortgage insurance depends on your credit score, loan type and loan-to-value ratio, and it stops once you build enough equity, so including a single estimate would be misleading. If your down payment is below 20%, budget an extra 0.5%–1.5% of the loan amount per year on top of the figures shown here.

Mortgage Calculator

Enter a home price, down payment, rate and term to see the full monthly cost of a mortgage — not just principal and interest, but the taxes, insurance and HOA fees that arrive with it.

Loan details

Adjust any figure to see the payment update instantly.

Taxes, insurance and fees

These are collected alongside your loan payment and often make up a quarter of the total.

Property tax (per year)1.10% of value

Home insurance (per year)

HOA fee (per month)

Leave at 0 if the property has no association.

Where your money goes over 30 years

Every dollar you will pay, split by what it buys.

Amortization summary

Year one sends $21,729 to interest and $3,756 to principal.

Yearly amortization schedule
Year	Principal	Interest	Interest to date	Balance
1	$3,756	$21,729	$21,729	$332,244
2	$4,007	$21,478	$43,207	$328,237
3	$4,275	$21,210	$64,417	$323,962
4	$4,562	$20,923	$85,340	$319,400
5	$4,867	$20,618	$105,958	$314,533
6	$5,193	$20,292	$126,249	$309,339
7	$5,541	$19,944	$146,193	$303,798
8	$5,912	$19,573	$165,766	$297,886
9	$6,308	$19,177	$184,943	$291,578
10	$6,731	$18,754	$203,697	$284,847
11	$7,181	$18,304	$222,001	$277,666
12	$7,662	$17,823	$239,824	$270,004
13	$8,175	$17,310	$257,133	$261,828
14	$8,723	$16,762	$273,895	$253,105
15	$9,307	$16,178	$290,073	$243,798
16	$9,931	$15,554	$305,628	$233,868
17	$10,596	$14,889	$320,517	$223,272
18	$11,305	$14,180	$334,697	$211,967
19	$12,062	$13,423	$348,120	$199,905
20	$12,870	$12,615	$360,735	$187,035
21	$13,732	$11,753	$372,487	$173,302
22	$14,652	$10,833	$383,321	$158,651
23	$15,633	$9,852	$393,173	$143,018
24	$16,680	$8,805	$401,978	$126,338
25	$17,797	$7,688	$409,666	$108,541
26	$18,989	$6,496	$416,162	$89,552
27	$20,261	$5,224	$421,386	$69,291
28	$21,618	$3,867	$425,254	$47,674
29	$23,065	$2,420	$427,673	$24,608
30	$24,608	$875	$428,548	$0

What this assumes

A fixed interest rate for the whole term.
Property tax, insurance and HOA fees stay flat — in practice they rise most years.
Private mortgage insurance is not included. Budget 0.5%–1.5% of the loan a year below a 20% down payment.

Estimated monthly payment

$2,658.75

On a $336,000 loan at 6.50% over 30 years.

Monthly breakdown

Principal & interest: $2,123.75
Property tax: $385.00
Home insurance: $150.00
HOA fee: $0.00

Loan totals

Loan amount: $336,000
Down payment20.0% of the purchase price: $84,000
Total interest128% of the amount borrowed: $428,548
Total of all payments: $957,148
Loan paid off: September 2056

Mortgage calculators by state

Property tax rates range from under 0.6% of a home's value to over 2%, and insurance from $1,500 a year to $5,500. These pages start from local figures rather than national averages.

See all states

What is a mortgage payment calculator?

A mortgage payment calculator turns four numbers — the amount you borrow, the interest rate, the length of the loan and your down payment — into the single figure that actually matters: what leaves your account each month.

The catch is that a mortgage payment is not one payment. It is a bundle. Lenders call it PITI: principal, interest, taxes and insurance. Add an HOA or condo fee and you have four or five separate costs collected as one. A calculator that shows only principal and interest can understate the real monthly cost by 20–30%, which is exactly the gap that catches first-time buyers out.

Principal: The part of each payment that reduces what you owe. It starts small and grows every month.
Interest: The lender’s charge for the money. It starts large and shrinks as the balance falls.
Taxes: Property tax charged by your county or municipality, usually collected monthly into an escrow account.
Insurance: Homeowners insurance, also normally escrowed. Flood or hazard coverage may be extra.
HOA fees: Paid directly to a homeowners association, not to your lender, but just as unavoidable.

How mortgage payments are calculated

Principal and interest come from the standard amortizing loan formula. If P is the loan amount, r the monthly interest rate (the annual rate divided by 12) and n the number of monthly payments, the level payment M is:

M = P × r ÷ (1 − (1 + r)⁻ⁿ)

That formula produces a payment that stays identical for the whole term while the split between principal and interest moves steadily. On a $320,000 loan at 6.5% over 30 years, the first payment is about $1,733 of interest and $289 of principal. By year 25 that has flipped almost entirely the other way.

Taxes, insurance and HOA fees are not borrowed money, so no interest applies. They are simply divided by twelve and added on top. That is why paying down your balance faster shrinks the interest portion of your payment but never touches the escrow portion.

Factors that affect your monthly mortgage payment

Small changes to the inputs move the payment by more than most people expect, and they do not all move it in the same direction.

Interest rate: On a $320,000 loan, one percentage point is roughly $200 a month and around $70,000 in interest across 30 years.
Loan term: A 15-year loan costs far more each month but can halve the lifetime interest. A 30-year loan buys breathing room at a price.
Down payment: More cash down means a smaller loan, a lower payment, and at 20% it usually removes mortgage insurance entirely.
Property tax rate: Rates vary from under 0.4% of value in Hawaii to over 2% in New Jersey — hundreds of dollars a month on an identical house.
Insurance and HOA: Both are quietly rising costs and neither falls as you pay down the loan.

Reading the amortization schedule

The amortization schedule shows where each payment goes. Early on, most of it is interest, because interest is charged on the balance you still owe and that balance is at its largest. As the balance falls, so does the interest charge, and the fixed payment redirects the difference to principal.

This is why extra payments early in a loan are so much more powerful than the same money later. Every dollar of extra principal in year one removes 30 years of interest on that dollar. The same dollar in year 25 removes five.

Frequently asked questions

Principal and interest use the amortizing loan formula M = P × r ÷ (1 − (1 + r)⁻ⁿ), where P is the loan amount, r the monthly interest rate and n the total number of monthly payments. Property tax, homeowners insurance and any HOA fee are then divided by twelve and added on top, since those are pass-through costs that do not accrue interest.