Mortgage Payment Calculator

Loan = price − down payment; principal & interest by standard amortization, plus monthly taxes, insurance, PMI and HOA for the full payment. Biweekly pays half the monthly amount every two weeks — 26 payments a year, the equivalent of 13 monthly ones.

What your monthly payment is really made of

A mortgage payment is not one thing — it is two. The first part is principal and interest (P&I): the loan repayment, fixed for the life of a fixed-rate loan and the only part most calculators show. The second is escrow: the property tax and homeowners insurance the lender collects monthly on your behalf, plus PMI and any HOA dues. On a typical loan, escrow can add several hundred dollars to the headline P&I figure, so the payment that actually leaves your account is noticeably larger. This calculator splits the payment into P&I and escrow so you can see both, and budget for the real number.

The split also matters over time. P&I stays level, but the share going to principal climbs every month as the balance falls — early payments are mostly interest, later ones mostly principal. Escrow, meanwhile, drifts up with taxes and premiums. Seeing the composition makes both the affordability question and the long-run cost honest.

Worked example — a $350,000 home, 20% down, 6.5% over 30 years: The loan is $280,000, and principal & interest is about $1,770 a month. Add ~$321 property tax and $125 insurance and the full monthly payment is about $2,216 — with no PMI, because the 20% down keeps you at 80% LTV.

Biweekly payments — the quiet shortcut

Here is the trick lenders rarely volunteer: pay half your monthly amount every two weeks instead of the whole thing once a month. There are 52 weeks in a year, so a biweekly schedule makes 26 half-payments — the equivalent of 13 full monthly payments, not 12. That one extra payment a year goes straight to principal, and because mortgage interest compounds on the balance, the effect snowballs: on a 30-year loan it typically clears the loan four to six years early and saves a substantial slice of total interest, all without you ever feeling a payment you could not afford.

Switch the payment frequency at the top to compare. The calculator amortises monthly and biweekly side by side, shows the interest saved and the years shaved, and overlays the two balance curves on the chart so you can see the biweekly line pulling ahead. A weekly schedule does a little more again.

Extra payments, points and the bigger picture

If biweekly is the automatic version, a deliberate extra payment is the manual one — and it works for the same reason. Anything you add on top of P&I reduces the principal directly, so it cuts both the interest and the term. Enter an extra amount under the advanced options to see how much interest it saves and when the loan would be paid off. Even a modest, consistent extra payment compounds into years off a long mortgage.

If your offer includes discount points or origination fees, add them too: the calculator folds them into an effective APR so you can judge whether buying down the rate is worth the up-front cost. Between the payment frequency, extra payments and the rate buy-down, you have the three main levers on what a mortgage really costs — and you can test each one here before committing.