The headline number adds principal and interest on the loan to any optional amounts you enter for property taxes, PMI, homeowners insurance, and HOA dues. If you leave those optional fields at zero, the total reflects P&I only.

Private mortgage insurance is entered as an estimated monthly dollar amount, not a rate. Use a quote from your lender or a rough monthly figure based on your down payment and loan program.

No. Closing costs, escrow setups, discount points, and lender-specific fees are not part of the payment estimate. It is meant for budgeting monthly housing cost and loan payoff math, not cash-to-close.

The tool ties the two fields to the home price so the loan amount stays consistent. Editing either field updates the other automatically from the same purchase price.

Not necessarily. Real loans use lender rounding, exact day-count conventions, changing escrow bills, and underwriting rules. Use this as a planning estimate and rely on your Loan Estimate for final figures.

That dollar amount is added to the new loan balance before the payment is calculated—use it when you plan to roll costs into the loan. Set it to zero if you will pay closing costs out of pocket.

It is a simplified estimate of total interest left on your current amortization path, using the balance, rate, and years remaining you entered. Prepayment history, escrow, and ARM changes are not modeled.

Not always. Compare upfront costs, how long you plan to stay in the home, total interest, and whether you are resetting the clock on the loan term. A lender can help with break-even timing.

Not explicitly. You can approximate a higher new balance if you already know the loan amount after cash out, but equity, LTV limits, and pricing for cash-out are not built in.

Break-even in months, discount points, temporary buydowns, ARM behavior, PMI changes, and miscellaneous lender fees beyond your inputs. It focuses on P&I and the financed balance you specify.

Monthly follows a standard fixed-rate payment every month. Bi-weekly assumes you pay half of that monthly P&I every 14 days, which yields extra principal over a year and can shorten the loan.

Lenders may round payments or balances differently, use a slightly different day-count or first-payment date, or apply fees and escrow separately. This tool models standard P&I amortization for education, not a specific servicing system.

Interest accrual for the bi-weekly path uses an actual-days-in-year convention (365), as noted in the disclaimer, rather than a simplified 30/360 schedule. That can produce small differences versus other calculators.

Not in this version. The month-by-month grid is a straight amortization with no optional add-ons. You can note side effects with your lender or use the schedule as a baseline and adjust manually.

The summary assumes the loan starts today using your local date, then walks forward by payment count. Holidays, funding delays, and true bi-weekly program rules are not applied.

It is Scenario B’s monthly principal and interest minus Scenario A’s. A positive value means B costs more per month; negative means B is cheaper on P&I alone.

Yes. Put the shorter term in one scenario and the longer term in the other. Watch both monthly payment and total interest, since shorter terms usually raise the payment but cut total interest.

Those costs depend on the property and location, not just rate and term. Keeping the tool to P&I lets you compare loan offers on equal footing before layering housing costs back in.

The line below the monthly delta reports total interest for Scenario B minus Scenario A over the full term of each loan. Positive means B costs more interest in total; negative means B costs less—same convention as the payment difference.

You can enter different balances when comparing, for example, a smaller loan after a larger down payment vs. a higher loan amount. Just remember the comparison is still principal-and-interest only.