Free tool
Start with the basic payment. Then switch on the moves that actually change the math — extra principal, biweekly payments, a recast, PMI dropping off — and watch what each one is worth.
What the options mean
Most buyers only ever see the first number. These are the levers that are still available to you years down the road.
Send more than you owe each month and the extra goes straight at the balance — skipping every dollar of interest that balance would have earned for the rest of the loan. Your payment never changes; the loan just ends early. On a typical 30-year loan, an extra $200 a month is worth years and six figures of interest.
Pay half your payment every two weeks and you make 26 half-payments a year — 13 monthly payments instead of 12. The extra one is all principal. It usually cuts four to six years off a 30-year loan. You do not need to pay a service to set this up: divide your payment by twelve and add it yourself.
Come into money — a bonus, an inheritance, proceeds from your old house — and you can put it against principal and ask the servicer to re-amortize. Same rate, same payoff date, permanently lower payment. It is the quiet alternative to refinancing when your rate is already good. Minimums and a small fee apply.
Mortgage insurance on a conventional loan is temporary. At 80% of the original value you can request removal; at 78% the servicer must cancel it. If your home has appreciated, a new appraisal can get you there sooner. That is real money back in your budget every month — and a reason not to fear a low down payment.
Year by year, what you actually paid and what you still owe. Early on, most of your payment is interest — which is exactly why extra principal in the first decade is worth so much more than the same dollars later.
The balance curve, baseline against your scenario. It is the clearest way to see what a small monthly change compounds into over thirty years.
Get a real number
Send me the scenario you just built and I'll come back with real rates, real costs, and the program that actually fits how you're buying — usually the same business day.