Numbers
How much home can I afford?
A monthly number is more useful than a headline purchase price.
How much home can I afford?
Home buying
Start with how you want evenings to feel after the mortgage drafts. Then see what purchase price that monthly number could support. The tool on this page uses teaching ratios, not your file.
A Hancock officer can tell you what may be approvable. Only you can tell them what is livable.
01
Affordability is a monthly question, not a listing price.
02
What a lender may approve and what you can live with are different numbers.
03
Taxes, insurance, HOA, and mortgage insurance belong in the same month as principal and interest.
04
This calculator is an illustration using ratios, not Hancock underwriting.
Illustration
What monthly number could support
Teaching ratios, not Hancock underwriting. Change the inputs. Then talk to an officer about your file.
Affordability
How much home could fit the monthly?
Uses a 28.000000000000004% housing ratio and 36% total debt ratio as teaching assumptions, not Hancock underwriting.
Illustrated purchase price
$386,023
- Max housing payment
- $2,520
- Estimated loan amount
- $296,023
This calculator is an educational illustration only. It is not a rate quote, pre-qualification, pre-approval, or commitment to lend. Interest rates, taxes, insurance, and mortgage insurance are assumptions you enter or we estimate. They are not Hancock’s current pricing. Actual payments vary. Hancock Mortgage is a DBA of Gold Star Mortgage Financial Group, Corp., NMLS #3446. Equal Housing Lender.
What sits in the payment
Principal and interest
The loan itself. Rate, term, and loan amount shape this. A longer term can drop the month and cost more interest over time.
Taxes and insurance
Escrow estimates change. Listings are often light. Ask for a real tax and insurance picture before you treat a payment as done.
HOA and mortgage insurance
Condos and planned communities add dues. Lower down payments can add PMI or a similar cost. Leave them out of the sketch and the number lies.
The rest of the month
Commute, childcare, maintenance, and the fact that houses break. Lenders do not budget your life. You should.
What lenders look at
Income, debts, credit, reserves, and occupancy. Two buyers with the same price in mind can qualify very differently. Self-employed income is documented differently from W-2 income.
Lenders also care whether the payment still works if taxes or insurance are higher than the listing suggested.
From this guide
Common questions
It is a ceiling, not a target. Spend toward the monthly number you chose on purpose.
The month
Qualify for a house you can still live in.
The letter is not the budget.
Ready when you are
The house is the point.
Whether you’re buying your first home, moving into your next one, refinancing, or exploring your options, we’re here to help you figure out the next step.