See exactly how much cash you need to buy a home and how your down payment shapes your monthly cost.
20% down payment avoids PMI (Private Mortgage Insurance), gets you better interest rates, lowers monthly payments, and builds instant equity.
On a $350,000 home, that's $70,000 down.
Result: No PMI (200-300/month savings), lower monthly payment, and you start with70,000 equity instead of almost nothing.
20% down payment avoids PMI (Private Mortgage Insurance), gets you better interest rates, lowers monthly payments, and builds instant equity.
On a $350,000 home, that's $70,000 down.
Result: No PMI (200-300/month savings), lower monthly payment, and you start with70,000 equity instead of almost nothing.
Conventional: 3-5% minimum (PMI required under 20%)
• FHA: 3.5% minimum (580+ credit) or 10% (500-579 credit)
• VA: 0% minimum (eligible veterans, no PMI ever)
• USDA: 0% minimum (eligible rural properties)
• Jumbo: Often 10-20% minimum. Choose loan type based on your down payment amount and situation.
PMI (Private Mortgage Insurance) protects the lender if you default.
Required for conventional loans with less than 20% down.
Cost: 0.5-1.5% of loan amount annually ($50-350/month typical).
Automatically removed at 78% LTV or when you request it at 80% LTV.
Not tax deductible (in most cases).
Adds thousands to your total cost.
Every $10,000 in down payment saves you roughly $60-75/month in principal and interest (at 7% rate, 30-year term).
On a 350,000 home: 3% down (10,500) = 2,260/month.
10% down (35,000) = 2,100/month.
20% down (70,000) = 1,863/month.
Plus PMI savings of200-300/month.
Total difference: $400-700/month!
⚠️ Budget an additional 3-5% of purchase price for closing costs (separate from down payment).
On a 350,000 home:10,500-17,500 in closing costs.
These include: appraisal, inspection, title insurance, lender fees, prepaid property taxes, escrow setup.
You need down payment PLUS closing costs in cash.
Many programs help with down payments: FHA loans (3.5% down), state/local down payment assistance grants (up to 15,000), IRA withdrawal (10,000 penalty-free for first home), gift from family (must be documented).
Explore all options before assuming you need 20% down.
Many buyers start with 3-10% down.
Tradeoff: Put 20% down to avoid PMI vs put 10% down and invest the difference.
Example: 350K home.
Option A:70K down (20%), no PMI, lower payment.
Option B: 35K down (10%), pay PMI, invest the other35K.
If investments earn 8-10% annually, Option B might win long-term despite PMI cost.
Run the numbers for your situation.
Minimum for most: 20% to avoid PMI if possible.
Exception: Put less down if (1) You can earn more investing the difference, (2) You need cash reserves for emergencies, (3) Home prices are rising fast (better to buy now with less down than wait), (4) Interest rates are rising (lock in rate now).
Balance PMI cost against opportunity cost of cash.
Down Payment Calculator - How Much Do I Need for a House? is most useful when you need a quick, repeatable check before moving numbers into a quote, spreadsheet, estimate, or comparison.
Start with the fields the tool asks for - Home Purchase Price, Down Payment Amount, Interest Rate (APR), Loan Term (Years) - then review Loan Amount, Down Payment Percentage, Loan-to-Value (LTV) Ratio, Monthly Payment (Principal & Interest), PMI Required? (if LTV > 80%) before copying the answer into a larger workflow.
This makes the page useful as a planning aid, a second-opinion check, and a way to catch obvious input mistakes before they become spreadsheet or paperwork errors.
Example: enter a realistic sample value first, confirm that the output is in the expected range, then replace it with your real value.
If the calculator includes fields such as Home Purchase Price, Down Payment Amount, Interest Rate (APR), Loan Term (Years), change one input at a time and watch how Loan Amount, Down Payment Percentage, Loan-to-Value (LTV) Ratio, Monthly Payment (Principal & Interest), PMI Required? (if LTV > 80%) responds.
A useful workflow is to run a low case, expected case, and high case.
That gives you a range instead of a single fragile answer and makes it easier to explain the result to someone reviewing the numbers later.
Checklist before relying on the result:
- Confirm that every source value is in the expected unit, period, currency, or percentage format.
- Check whether any input was rounded before you entered it.
- Keep enough decimal places for follow-up math, then round only in the final report.
- Save the assumptions next to the result so another person can review the same scenario.
- If the value affects a contract, invoice, engineering decision, tax filing, loan, insurance decision, or financial plan, verify it against the source that controls your specific case.
The calculator is designed as a working aid rather than a permanent record.
Avoid putting sensitive identifiers, account numbers, customer names, addresses, or proprietary project details into screenshots, notes, or shareable URLs.
Keep the original source value next to the converted or calculated result so the work can be reviewed later.
For comparison workflows, related tools such as /tools/housing-real-estate/pmi-calculator/, /tools/housing-real-estate/mortgage-points-calculator/, /tools/housing-real-estate/closing-costs-calculator/ can help validate whether the result is reasonable from another angle.
Common mistakes include mixing monthly and annual figures, entering a percentage as a whole number when the tool expects a percent, copying a rounded result into another calculation, and comparing outputs that were created from different assumptions.
If the result looks too high or too low, reset to a simple test case, confirm the source fields (Home Purchase Price, Down Payment Amount, Interest Rate (APR), Loan Term (Years)), and rerun the scenario before changing formulas or overwriting saved work.
Understand the essential concepts behind this calculator
Common questions about the Down Payment Calculator - Free Online Tool
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