Buying a home in Chicago as a first-time home buyer or someone with several home purchases in their past involves a lot of choices and decision. Not only is there the stress of trying to find the perfect home in the ideal neighborhood, but there is also the need to finance the home.
One simple tool to use for anyone looking for a home in or around Chicago is to use an online mortgage calculator. These free tools can be used to determine the loan amount for the home, the value of the monthly mortgage payments as well as the additional costs that will need to be considered.
Determining a Loan or Payment Amount
A mortgage calculator can be used to determine an amount of a loan for a given individual or family. This is not the same as being preapproved, which is an application process. These types of calculators can be used before the preapproval application to help home hunters understand a general range of home prices to consider.
With the loan amount determined based on income, other debts and expenses, the individual or couple can also consider the monthly mortgage payments that are comfortable for their situation. This is very helpful as some home buyers assume the preapproved amount is always the amount to borrow, but this is often not the case and may result in monthly payments that are too high.
Considering Down Payments and Interest Rates
Experimenting with different amounts for a down payment and different interest rates is helpful to see how these factors will impact the loan over the term selected. With any type of mortgage calculator that allows for these inputs home buyers will quickly see the benefit of improving credit scores for a lower interest rate as well as saving for a larger down payment.
Guaranteed Rate offers free mortgage calculator tools online for first-time and experienced home buyers. To try out our calculators or to learn more about our online mortgages.
