Mortgage Payment Calculator
A mortgage payment is worked out from four things: the amount borrowed, the interest rate, the number of payments, and nothing else. On a $400,000 home with 20% down at 6.5% over 30 years, the principal and interest come to $2,023 a month on a $320,000 loan, and $408,142 of interest across the full term.
This estimate does not include property taxes, homeowners insurance, mortgage insurance or HOA dues. Your actual payment obligation will be greater.
These figures are the arithmetic of the assumptions you entered. BEDRWay is not a lender, does not quote rates, and this is not a loan offer, a pre-qualification or a commitment to lend. A licensed loan officer runs your actual numbers.
On this page
How the maths works
Every level-payment mortgage in the country comes out of one formula. The payment is whatever amount, repeated n times, exactly retires the balance:
M = P × [ i(1+i)ⁿ ] ÷ [ (1+i)ⁿ − 1 ]
- M is the monthly payment of principal and interest.
- P is the amount borrowed, so the price minus the down payment.
- i is the monthly rate, which is the annual rate divided by twelve.
- n is the number of payments: 360 on a thirty-year loan.
At a rate of zero that expression divides by zero, and the answer is simply the balance split evenly across the term. That is an edge case rather than an offer, but a calculator that returns an error there is a calculator with a bug in it.
Why the first years are almost all interest
The payment never changes, but what it buys does. Interest is charged on whatever is still owed, so early on the balance is large and most of the payment goes to interest. As the balance falls, the interest portion falls with it and the principal portion grows to fill the gap. On the example above, the loan is $320,000 and the interest paid across the full term is $408,142, which is more than the amount borrowed.
This is also why paying a little extra early does far more than paying the same amount later. Every dollar of principal removed early is a dollar that stops accruing interest for the whole remaining term.
What this figure leaves out, and it is a lot
This is principal and interest only. A lender collects more than that each month, and the pieces missing here are the ones that vary most between two houses at the same price:
- Property tax, which ranges from under 0.4% of value a year in some states to over 2.2% in others.
- Homeowners insurance, which has moved sharply in coastal and wildfire states.
- Mortgage insurance, which conventional lenders add below 20% down and which comes off automatically at 78% of the original value.
- HOA dues, where the property has them.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has made this point about the whole category of mortgage calculators: most of them compute principal and interest and leave the reader to discover the rest at closing. Treat the figure above as the floor of the monthly cost, never the whole of it.
Rate and APR are not the same number
The rate sets the payment. The APR sets the comparison. Where a loan carries points or lender fees, the APR rises above the rate, which is what makes two offers with different fee structures comparable at all. This page assumes no financed costs, so the two match. On a real loan estimate they will not, and the gap between them is the part worth asking about.
What the same loan costs at other rates
| Home price | At 6.000% | At 6.500% | At 7.000% |
|---|---|---|---|
| $300,000 | $1,439 | $1,517 | $1,597 |
| $400,000 | $1,919 | $2,023 | $2,129 |
| $500,000 | $2,398 | $2,528 | $2,661 |
| $600,000 | $2,878 | $3,034 | $3,193 |
| $750,000 | $3,597 | $3,792 | $3,992 |
This estimate does not include property taxes, homeowners insurance, mortgage insurance or HOA dues. Your actual payment obligation will be greater.
These figures are the arithmetic of the assumptions you entered. BEDRWay is not a lender, does not quote rates, and this is not a loan offer, a pre-qualification or a commitment to lend. A licensed loan officer runs your actual numbers.
Frequently asked questions
Why is my real payment higher than this?
Because this figure is principal and interest only. A lender collects property taxes and homeowners insurance with the payment, and adds mortgage insurance when the down payment is under 20%. Those three together commonly add several hundred dollars a month, and they vary enormously by state and by property.
What is the difference between the interest rate and the APR?
The interest rate sets the payment. The APR folds in the financing costs as well, so it is the number that lets two offers with different fee structures be compared. On this page they are equal, because it assumes no financed costs. Add points or lender fees to a real loan and the APR rises above the rate.
Does a shorter term save money?
It raises the payment and cuts the total interest, usually by a lot. The same loan over 15 years costs more each month than over 30, and far less across the life of the loan. Whether that trade is right depends on what the difference in payment would otherwise be doing.
Is this a rate I can get?
No. Every figure here comes from assumptions you typed in, including the rate. BEDRWay is not a lender, sets no rates and quotes none. What you would actually be offered depends on your credit, the property, the loan programme and the day, and only a licensed loan officer can tell you.
Sources
- Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey, national weekly average mortgage rates, retrieved 2026-08-24
Last updated: August 25, 2026