Home Mortgage Rate Calculator

One tool that can be very helpful if you’re in the market to buy a home is a home mortgage calculator. These home mortgage calculators come in all sorts of shapes and sizes on the internet. Some are quite basic, while others provide options for calculating a number of related factors.

A basic home mortgage calculator will ask you for the amount of your loan (Principal), the interest rate you expect to pay and the term or length of your loan. The result will be your monthly payment. A nice feature found on some other web sites is an added payment option. This feature allows you to not only calculate your basic minimum payment, but also factor in additional amounts. For example, your minimum monthly payment is $1000 but you’d like to pay an extra $100 per month. This feature shows how the extra $100 per month will affect the overall payoff date of your loan…how much sooner you can expect to have your mortgage paid off by adding the additional amount each month. In addition to adding an extra amount each month, calculators like this also allow you to calculate your mortgage with an additional yearly amount or adding just a one-time additional payment on your mortgage.

If you are really serious about buying and are ready to begin contacting lenders, some of these calculators offer another helpful feature. Besides entering your basic payment information, some of these web sites will link you to mortgage rates and information for lenders in your area. You’ll be able to see the lender’s interest rate, what your estimated payment would be at that rate, and contact information if you would like to check with the lender and possible apply for a loan.

Most of these home mortgage calculators will also create an amortization table for you. An amortization table shows you by month what your minimum payment is, how much of that payment will go to the principal of your loan, how much will go toward interest, and what your remaining balance will be on your loan after that month’s payment.

Related calculators that can be found on some sites include help in determining how much you can afford, how much you can borrow, whether or not refinancing is a good idea for you and your situation, and making bi-weekly mortgage payments vs. monthly payments.