When you are going to apply for a mortgage you know how much loan you want. But you do not know the rate of interest and the amount of installment you need to pay monthly for your mortgage. You do not need to rack your brains, as there are many types of mortgage calculators available on the internet. You can even make your own mortgage calculator on Microsoft Excel. We will review a few of the best mortgage calculators available online and also review the information you need to put in there.

What is a Mortgage calculator?

A simple mortgage calculator will have three essential fields. Some of the calculators will have additional fields as well. We will try to understand what these fields mean.

1. Amount of loan – The loan amount you need to get approved from the mortgage company.
2. Rate of interest – The interest that the mortgage company is charging. You can get the information online or from the brochure of the mortgage company.
3. Tenure – The number of years you will have to pay the installment before your loan is paid. The longer the term the lesser is the monthly installment. The tenure depends on your working tenure directly. So a 25 year old will easily get a 30 year tenure while a 40 year old will get the mortgage maximum for 20 years.
4. Property tax – Some of the mortgage calculators will have this additional field. This makes a more realistic calculation as property tax has to be paid immediately.

Do you understand your mortgage calculator?

3 Best Mortgage calculators online

You can get amazing mortgage calculators on the internet and can use the same to review your mortgage. The ones I use to review and get good results are:

• mortgagecalculator.org – This is one of the best mortgage calculator tools. It includes property tax and PMI along with loan amount, rate and tenure to give a very realistic calculation of your installments. It even gives a comparison of monthly and bi-weekly payments. It also gives information about how much interest you are paying and the total amount of interest paid. According to me it is the best mortgage calculator available online.
• moneychimp.com – This is a simple calculator and includes a graph to show you the decrease in debt over a period of time. It is best for people who are finance novices just because of its simplicity. It simply gives your monthly installment and is easy to understand. Just includes the three essential fields of Amount, rate and tenure.
• bankrate.com – This also provides the simple calculator. The additional feature is the average mortgage rates highlighted on the sidebar. This will help you to bargain with the mortgage company.

Taking all these three calculators together will help you get the best rates and also know about the money you should keep handy when buying a mortgage.

Image credit: iloanhomemortgage.com