Real-estate decision tools — no MLS, no listings
The numbers behind your next move.
Transparent, sourced calculators for the financial questions behind buying, renting, owning, refinancing, and selling a home. Every default carries its source. Every assumption is yours to change. Your answer isn't hidden behind a lead form.
Default rate: 7.03% 30-yr fixed (Freddie Mac PMMS, September 24, 2026) — shown with sources, not asserted.
Six calculators, zero hand-waving
Most calculators hide the assumptions that decide the answer. Ours put them in sliders you control, cite the defaults, and restate them with every result.
Flagship
Rent vs. Buy Calculator
The cumulative-cost crossover between owning and renting, with a break-even year and every assumption on the table — PMMS-sourced rate, FHFA-based appreciation default, and the stay-duration slider that actually drives the answer.
Run the comparison
Payment
Mortgage Payment Calculator
Principal & interest plus taxes, insurance, PMI, and HOA — the all-in monthly number, with an amortization summary that shows where your money actually goes.
Calculate a payment
Budget
How Much House Can I Afford?
The 28/36 rule lenders still use as their benchmark, plus the 43% historical Qualified-Mortgage ceiling for honest context. Adjust the DTI limits to see what a stretch costs.
Check affordability
Sell or hold
Home Sale Proceeds Calculator
Your net if you sold today, next to the same sale held N years — Section 121 timing, your state's reassessment rule, and the rate lock-in priced side by side.
Run the sell-vs-hold math
Refinance
Refinance Calculator
Closing-cost payback period, monthly savings, and lifetime interest — with the term-reset trap shown honestly instead of hidden.
Run the refi math
Payoff
Mortgage Payoff Calculator
Extra-payment scenarios with exact month-by-month math: months saved, interest saved, and the true (smaller) final payment.
Model prepayments
Closing
Closing Cost Calculator
Itemized buyer and seller line items instead of a vague 2–5% — with transfer tax and attorney fees as explicit state-specific inputs.
Itemize closing costs
Schedule
Amortization Calculator & Schedule
The year-by-year paydown: every payment split into interest and principal, the crossover month, the half-balance year, and what an extra monthly payment changes.
Build the schedule
Payoff frequency
Biweekly Mortgage Calculator
26 half-payments a year is 13 full payments: payoff months and interest saved versus the monthly schedule, plus the free self-managed equivalent.
Price the biweekly plan
Rate buydown
Mortgage Points Calculator
One point costs 1% of the loan and buys the rate down — the break-even months per point, the lender-credit mirror, and what ends the trade early.
Run the break-even
Featured guides
Deep dives behind each calculator — how the math works, which assumptions move the answer, and where every figure comes from.
Guide
When does buying beat renting? The break-even, explained
The stay-duration slider matters more than the rate. Why the first years of a mortgage are mostly interest, and what that means for a 2-year move vs. a 10-year one — walked with the calculator's own numbers.
Read the guide
Guide
PMI, decoded: what it costs and when it goes away
How the 0.5%–1.5%/yr premium range works, why our calculator uses 0.6%, and how the 78% auto-cancellation convention plays out in practice.
Read the guide
Sourced defaults
Rates come from the Freddie Mac PMMS survey. Appreciation defaults from the FHFA House Price Index. If we can't cite it, we say it's a rule of thumb.
Honest by design
We state what the model excludes — closing costs, the return on an invested down payment — instead of pretending they don't exist.
No listings, no MLS
We don't sell homes, generate leads, or rank agents. The tools answer questions; the sources let you check our work.