Real Estate Calculator

Net proceeds from selling a property.

Disclosure rules in the United States require a loan estimate within three business days of application and a closing disclosure three days before signing, which is what makes the figures comparable between lenders. Discount points buy a lower rate, and the break-even on that trade is measured in months rather than years.

American home loans are priced as an annual rate compounded monthly, and the 30-year fixed remains the default: the rate is locked at closing and the payment never moves. Lenders also collect escrow for property tax and homeowners insurance, and a loan above 80% of the purchase price normally carries private mortgage insurance until the balance falls.

FHA, VA and USDA programmes trade looser credit rules for mortgage insurance premiums or funding fees.

Because a 30-year fixed loan makes 360 payments, a single point of rate moves lifetime interest by tens of thousands of dollars on a typical balance, which is why refinancing is judged on break-even rather than on the monthly figure alone.

Escrow is where the estimate drifts: property tax is reassessed after a sale in many states, so the first year's impound account can run short and the payment rises to cover the gap. Mortgage interest is also front-loaded, and the deduction only helps a household that itemises rather than taking the standard deduction.

Real Estate Calculator sits with the rest of the library's finance work, and it rests on the same home-finance arithmetic the way a lender's disclosure or a bank statement does. Its answer is only as good as the assumptions standing behind it.

The quantities it works from — sale price, agent commission, mortgage payoff, seller closing costs and repairs & concessions — are the ones a real home-finance question actually turns on, and each carries a convention of its own, set out below.

Money questions in America turn on the same few trade-offs: how long a balance is carried, what rate applies to it, and whether the money is being paid down or built up. Inflation sits behind all of them, since a figure that looks generous at today's prices buys less at tomorrow's, and comparisons across decades are made in real, inflation-adjusted terms.

American products also disclose their costs in prescribed ways, from the APR on a consumer loan to the annual percentage yield on a deposit account.