Affordability Calculator

Each band caps total debt obligations (existing EMIs + the new one) at a share of income — 30% Comfortable, 40% Stretch, 50% Ceiling. The affordable EMI converts to a loan via the rate and tenure; the price is that loan plus your down payment. Rent uses 25–35% of income; a purchase compares financing against saving up.

Three numbers, not one

Ask a bank what you can afford and they’ll quote the maximum their rules allow — the point at which your repayments swallow so much income that life gets tight. That single number misleads. This calculator gives three. The Comfortable band keeps total debt to 30% of income, leaving real breathing room. Stretch goes to 40% — manageable, but you’ll feel it. The Ceiling, 50%, is roughly the lender’s limit: technically affordable, genuinely uncomfortable. The honest answer to “what can I afford?” is the range, and a conscious choice of where in it to sit — not the top.

Worked example — $100,000 income, $5,000 existing EMIs, $500,000 down, a 20-year loan at 8.5%: Comfortable buys a ~$3.4M home, Stretch ~$4.5M, Ceiling ~$5.7M. The same profile, the same maths — three very different lifestyles.

All-in, and stress-tested

A home or car costs more than its EMI. Property tax, maintenance and insurance — or a car’s fuel, servicing and insurance — are real monthly money, and a price that ignores them isn’t truly affordable. Enter them and the calculator folds them in, lowering the loan you can carry so the result covers the whole cost of ownership. For a home it also handles the big one-off most calculators ignore: registration and stamp duty, which can be 5–8% of the price in much of India and is cash you need at purchase, on top of your down payment. The all-in table breaks every band down to its true monthly cost, and the upfront-cash figure tells you what you actually need in the bank on day one. It checks your down payment against typical lending norms (around 10% for a home, 20% for a car) and runs a stress test: how much you could still afford if interest rates rose two points. If that number is uncomfortably lower than today’s, you’re buying at the edge of your range.

The affordability scale shows all three bands at once: a shaded bar from zero to your Ceiling price, your recommended price marked on it, and a dashed marker for the +2% stress test. It’s the whole answer in one glance — where you can comfortably sit, and how much rates could move before it hurts.

When your income isn’t a salary

The comfort bands assume a steady paycheque. If yours is variable — commission, freelance, business income — or genuinely uncertain, the honest move is to leave more headroom, because a 40%-of-income EMI is far riskier when income dips some months. Set your income stability to Variable and the recommendation steps one band more conservative; set it to Uncertain and it drops to the Comfortable band outright. The bands themselves don’t change — you can still see the full range — but the number the calculator points you to reflects that irregular earners should borrow as if their good months won’t last. This is a planning guide, not financial advice; lenders apply their own criteria.

Rent and big purchases

Renting follows a simpler rule of thumb: keep rent to about 25–30% of take-home pay, stretching to 35% in expensive cities. The calculator shows the range and what’s left after rent, existing EMIs and living costs. For a one-off big purchase, the question is usually finance-or-save: it shows the EMI and total interest if you borrow, against how many months of setting money aside it would take to simply pay cash — which, free of interest, is almost always the cheaper path if you can wait. Across every mode, the income-allocation bar makes the squeeze visible: how your income carves up between existing debt, living, the new commitment, and what remains. This is a planning guide, not financial advice — lenders apply their own criteria.