What it does
Most calculators ask for one income and one down payment and hand back a monthly payment. This one starts from what you actually have and what you can actually pay every month, works out what that buys, and holds up whether you are buying alone or with someone, in which case it also says who owns what at the end of it.
Your cash is a list of the places it actually sits rather than one number, and you choose how much of each one goes in.
Whatever you leave in a source stays there, so the money you keep on hand is a decision you make rather than a surprise.
Buying with someone means each of you sets your own limit on what a month can cost, instead of being averaged into a single household figure.
The calculator finds the highest price those limits can reach, instead of making you guess and retype.
It shows what a month really costs part by part, what closing day takes off the top, and what anyone buying with you ends up owning.
Sign in to keep a version under a name, send that one to someone, and hold a few side by side while you decide.
One buyer or two, without pretending
Most calculators ask for a single income and a single down payment, which works right up until two people are typing into it and they bring different amounts and can carry different monthly payments. Start alone and nothing asks you to split anything. Add someone and they are entered separately and stay separate all the way through: what they bring, what they can carry, and what they end up owning.
Cash you can actually point at
Money is rarely one balance. It is a checking account, a brokerage account, a gift from a relative, a grant that has vested. Each source is named and gets its own slider for how much of it is going in, so the down payment is the sum of decisions you made rather than a figure you talked yourself into.
The reserve is part of the plan
Whatever you leave in a source stays in it. That makes how much cash to keep on hand part of the model instead of an afterthought, and it means what you see on screen is what you would really still have the day after closing.
Closing day comes out of what you brought
Most calculators treat the down payment as a number you type in and closing costs as a footnote underneath it. Here the fees and the transfer tax come off the cash you are putting in first, and the down payment is whatever survives them, which is what makes stopping short of the maximum a real choice rather than a rounding error. It buys you a slightly larger loan and leaves the difference in your pocket. The rates are modeled for the place you are actually buying, not averaged across the country.
What a month costs, part by part
The loan payment is the smallest part of what a month costs. Property tax, insurance, any dues the building charges, the extra insurance a lender adds while your equity is still thin, and something set aside for the things that break all arrive together, and here they are drawn as separate pieces of one bar rather than folded into a single figure. You can see which piece is the one making the month hard, and which of you is carrying it.
The top of your range, found for you
What you can carry every month implies a highest price you can reach, and with two of you it is both ceilings together. Rather than making you type prices until one of them stops fitting, the calculator solves for that price and shows you where the range ends.
Ownership, worked out rather than assumed
When two of you are buying, putting in different amounts means owning different shares, and splitting it down the middle is a decision rather than a default. The calculator shows what each buyer’s contribution actually buys them, so the conversation starts from something concrete.
Somewhere to keep the versions you try
Deciding what you can afford is never one calculation, it is a dozen of them a week apart. Any set of figures can be held beside the others so a lower price and a bigger down payment sit next to each other instead of living in your memory of what the last one said. Sign in and a version can be kept under a name you chose, and that is the one you come back to and the one you send to someone, since its link is the only way figures leave this page. Anyone you send it to can open it without an account.