Work backwards from your real life — income, debts, and savings — to a price range you can live with comfortably.
Car loans, student loans, card minimums — not rent or utilities.
36% is a comfortable conventional benchmark; many loans allow up to 43–45%, but higher means a tighter monthly budget.
A planning estimate — not a pre-approval and not lending advice. Assumes a 30-year loan with roughly 15% of the payment going to taxes and insurance. Your credit profile, loan program, and the property itself will move the real number; a lender pre-approval takes about a day and makes it official.
The most expensive mistake in a home search is touring above your real budget — everything after that feels like settling. Anchor to the monthly payment you can live with easily, not the maximum a lender will approve. When you're ready to make it official, we'll connect you with lenders who compete for your business, and the mortgage calculator will break any specific home down to the dollar.
