Where To Find The Best Mortgage Calculators

Mortgages and numbers.  You can’t have one without the other.

So, does the mortgage rate really matter?  Where can you find out how big of mortgage you can afford?  What would happen in you made extra payments on your current mortgage?  How would that effect the future payments and potential mortgage length?

Making a mistake on a mortgage can have huge ramifications on your financial life and stress levels.

best mortgage calculators for consumers

Suffice it to say that when you want to figure out stuff about your mortgage, or potentially a new mortgage, you want to find some mortgage calculators.

Best Mortgage Calculator Site

One site I found that has a ton of great mortgage calculators is MortgageCalculators.info

One of the best things about this site is that it’s not cluttered with ads.  In the mortgage world, mortgage leads are big bucks – and therefore most of the sites with mortgage calculators tend to be full of ads.

This is distracting, especially when you just want to get some numbers and make a comparison.

Likewise, if you go to a bank website and use their mortage calculators, they tend to be biassed towards their own mortgage packages.  So I much prefer to do my calculations on a neutral, third-party site.

Additionally, the bank websites tend to have only the most basic of mortgage tools and calculators.

So if you want to dig deep into some top shelf mortgage calculators, this site really has everything laid out so you can easily access the calculators and go through your numbers and get a clear idea of what to do and what kind of mortgage works best for your financial situation.

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This is another unbiased source of mortgage info.

Do Banks Have Your Best Interest At Heart?

Remember, the banks have a vested interest in selling you a mortgage. They make a significant amount of money from lending you money for your mortgage.

By comparison, many of the bank calculators are misleading – because they don’t has an many inputs – and can cause you to over-estimate your mortgage pre-approval numbers.  In fact, the banks have a vested interest (yes, that’s a pun!) in dumbing down the mortgage calculators on their sites to make a potential mortgage seem more attractive.

How Mortgage Calculators Often Mislead New Home Buyers

They often don’t even give you an option to factor in property taxes! Check out this CNBC article on the the “intentional” limitations of other mortgage calculators.

The point is that not seeing the full costs of a mortgage, and/or by using tools that may not give you the full picture is an epic mistake.

Another thing to be aware of is home insurance.  Home insurance has gone through the roof in the past few years.  In fact, our own home insurance has over doubled from about $125 approx per month to $410 per month.

Missing some key elements like this, that make up a HUGE part of expenses is significant. My own principle residence has seen a significant increase in the cost of home owners insurance. It's now $410 per month CAD, which for some people near where I live is equivalent to an entire mortgage payment! (By way of comparison, a decade ago, my home insurance was a little under $200/mo.)

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(Personally, I think that insurance, particularly insurance that everyone is required to buy by law, is a bit of a scam. But that's a blog post for another day.)

Final Thoughts on The Best Sites For Estimating Mortgages

Big purchases require looking at all the facts. And if you really want to get a handle on mortgages, it's worth it to dig deep into the numbers and spend some time looking at different scenarios with the best mortgage calculators and tools.

Avoid the bank mortgage calculators, because they are basic at best, and misleading at worst.

With all the distracting stuff on the internet, I really value clarity and brevity.  And that’s the biggest strength I can think about in the world of online mortgage calculators. So grab a piece of paper and start running some numbers for your next mortgage.

Got a tip on getting a great mortgage rate? Leave a comment below and share it with our readers.

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