House Down Payment Savings Calculator

What cash to close actually covers

Most down payment calculators solve for one number, the down payment, and stop there. That understates what you have to have in the bank on closing day by thousands of dollars, because the down payment is only part of the cash you bring. The rest is closing costs, and for a buyer those usually run 2% to 5% of the price.

That 2% to 5% covers lender origination and underwriting fees, the appraisal, a title search and title insurance, recording fees and state or county transfer taxes, plus the property tax and homeowners insurance you prepay into escrow. The mix shifts a lot by state: transfer taxes alone can swing the total by a full percentage point. Some lenders quote the percentage against the loan amount rather than the purchase price, which is another reason a real quote will not match an estimate to the dollar.

Seller credits and lender credits can cut what you actually wire, and this page ignores both on purpose. You do not know whether you will get either until you are under contract, so planning without them and being pleasantly surprised beats the reverse.

On a $400,000 home with closing costs at 3% ($12,000), the cash to close lands at $24,000 at 3% down, $32,000 at 5% down, and $92,000 at 20% down. The down payment balloons across those three, but the $12,000 of closing costs sits there in every one of them, and none of it has anything to do with the down payment.

Down payment minimums by loan type

The 20% number is a convention, not a requirement. Every mainstream loan program goes well below it:

• Conventional, 3%. Fannie Mae HomeReady and Freddie Mac Home Possible go to 3% down for qualifying buyers. Standard conventional loans typically start at 5%.
• FHA, 3.5%. Available with a credit score of 580 or higher. Scores of 500 to 579 need 10% down instead.
• VA, 0%. No down payment for eligible service members and veterans, as long as the sales price is not higher than the appraised value of the home.
• USDA, 0%. The Single Family Housing Guaranteed Loan Program is a no-down-payment route for eligible buyers in qualifying rural areas.

The presets on this page are a cost tradeoff, not a ranking. A smaller down payment gets you to the closing table sooner, but it also buys you a larger loan, a larger monthly payment, more total interest, and normally mortgage insurance on top. Click through 3%, 5% and 20% at your price and watch the loan amount and the loan-to-value move together. That is the trade in one line.

The 20% line and what it is really worth

Private mortgage insurance covers the lender against your default. It does nothing for you, and on a conventional loan it is normally required whenever you put down less than 20%. That is the whole reason the 20% figure has the grip it does.

It is also not permanent. On a conventional loan you can ask your servicer to cancel PMI once the balance is scheduled to reach 80% of the original value of the home, and the servicer has to cancel it automatically at 78%, as long as your payments are current. There is a backstop too: PMI ends the month after the midpoint of the amortization schedule of the loan. FHA mortgage insurance follows different rules and, on most FHA loans written today, runs for the life of the loan whatever you put down.

So the honest version of the 20% question is arithmetic, not virtue. If reaching 20% at your price means four more years of saving, you are trading four years of PMI premiums against four more years of rent, plus whatever the market does in the meantime. Neither side of that is automatically cheaper. The "extra needed to reach 20%" figure above exists so you can put a dollar amount on the choice instead of arguing about it in the abstract, and the loan-type note above it makes sure you are not applying a conventional rule to an FHA or VA loan.

Turning the monthly number into a plan that holds

A monthly contribution only works if it survives contact with the rest of the month. Four things help. Give the goal a name, a target amount and a deadline, so it stops competing with everything else for the same undifferentiated pile of cash. Fund it as a transfer on payday instead of with whatever is left at the end of the month. Keep it in an account you have excluded from day-to-day spending, separate from your emergency fund, which has to still be there the week after you move in. And check progress against the goal instead of redoing the plan every few weeks.

That is the shape Budget44 is built around. A saving goal takes a target amount and a target date, shows a progress ring, and sits next to your accounts so the down payment pot is visibly not the grocery money. Recurring transactions cover the payday transfer on any of six cadences, and the calendar shows recorded against projected activity so a month part-way through still reads correctly. Everything is entered by hand and stored on the device: no account, no bank connection, and amounts held as integer minor units so the totals stay exact to the cent. The free tier covers a down payment goal and the accounts around it.

Two other numbers belong in the same review. Card balances feed the debt-to-income ratio a lender checks before approving you, so the credit card payoff calculator is worth a look before you get serious about a price, and the net worth calculator shows where the down payment cash sits against everything else you own and owe.

You have your monthly number. Set a down payment goal in Budget44 and fund it on payday.