February 5, 2016
When you are planning your home loan, there are many aspects to consider. The selling price of the home is only one of those aspect; borrowers will need to save money for closing costs, a home inspection, and make a monthly budget for the mortgage amount, plus taxes and insurance.
Some of the planning phase of your FHA mortgage involve things like requesting copies of your credit reports–things with concrete numbers such as FICO scores and payment amounts. But when it comes to figuring out your mortgage payment, arriving at the actual number can be a bit tricky.
That’s one reason why it’s a good idea to use an FHA mortgage calculator to help you arrive at a more accurate dollar amount for your monthly mortgage payment (projected, of course). Using the calculator means having some information at your disposal, even if it’s only a rough estimate.
For example, you’ll need the purchase price of your home, plus the amount of the down payment you plan on making. FHA mortgage loans require a minimum of 3.5% of the price of the home, so that’s a solid number you can calculate using the sales price. Another number you’ll need is the term of your FHA loan–15 or 30 years, and there’s also property taxes to factor in (each state is different) and the amount of your homeowner insurance.
When you have these numbers ready you can plug them into the FHA loan mortgage calculator and determine your monthly mortgage loan payment with your taxes and insurance included.
When using this type of online mortgage calculator tool, remember that the numbers you get are subject to change depending on the variables–if property taxes increase, or if the amount of your down payment changes, or even if the sale price of the home fluctuates. The number you get from the FHA loan mortgage calculator should not be taken as a guarantee, but rather an estimate of your final costs based on the input given at the time.
Do you work in residential real estate? You should know about the free tool offered by FHA.com. It is designed especially for real estate websites; a widget that displays FHA loan limits for the counties serviced by those sites. It is simple to spend a few seconds customizing the state, counties, and widget size for the tool; you can copy the code and paste it into your website with ease. Get yours today:
http://www.fha.com/fha_loan_limits_widget
Joe Wallace has been specializing in military and personal finance topics since 1995. His work has appeared on Air Force Television News, The Pentagon Channel, ABC and a variety of print and online publications. He is a 13-year Air Force veteran and a member of the Air Force Public Affairs Alumni Association. He was Managing editor for www.valoans.com for (8) years and is currently the Associate Editor for FHANewsblog.com.
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