Live Home Affordability Calculator
Your housing budget
Recommended price
$394,054
28% front-end ratio
Stretch ceiling
$507,118
36% back-end ratio
Recommended P&I
$2,167/mo
Principal + interest
Vs local median
—
Buying power
Home Affordability Hub
The 28/36 rule, modeled honestly
What lenders will lend you and what you can actually afford are different numbers. The Home Affordability Engine shows both.
The 28% front-end ratio caps housing cost at 28% of gross monthly income. The 36% back-end ratio caps total debt service at 36%. The recommended home price uses the first; the stretch ceiling uses the second. Both update in real time as you change inputs.
What 'affordable' actually means
Affordable isn't 'I can make the payment'. Affordable is 'I can make the payment, fund retirement, save for emergencies, and live in the house'. The engine models all of it via the Life Impact dashboards.
Local context matters
Use the city pages to compare the recommended home price against the local median. A score below 50 means the engine projects you'd be priced out of the local market without leverage or compromise on location.
Published and reviewed by
Keiron Brown
Founder & Editor, SalaryScopePro · Relationale LLC
5530 S. University Drive, 3212, Davie, FL 33328
Keiron Brown is the founder of Relationale LLC and the editor of SalaryScopePro. He is a psychologist by training. He is not a recruiter, compensation consultant, financial adviser, accountant, or attorney, and nothing on this site is career, financial, legal, or tax advice.
How these figures are produced: SalaryScopePro publishes salary ranges, cost-of-living comparisons, and career reference material built from published datasets. Figures are traceable to the primary sources listed on our methodology page, and pages are reviewed on a fixed schedule so that stated figures match their source. Methodology.
Last reviewed: by Keiron Brown. Pages carrying salary, cost-of-living, or market figures are reviewed quarterly. Explanatory and definitional content is reviewed annually. Corrections are made promptly when an error is reported. Report a correction.