Buy
Property for sale New homes for sale Property valuation Investors Mortgages
Rent
Property to rent Student property to rent
Find Agent
Find estate agents
House prices
Sold house prices Instant online valuation
Commercial
Commercial property to rent Commercial property for sale Advertise
Inspire
Moving stories Property news Energy efficiency Property guides Housing trends Overseas blog Mortgage guides
Overseas
All countries Spain France Portugal Italy Greece Currency Sell Overseas property

Mortgage Affordability Calculator

Find out how much you can afford to borrow for your home

Deposit
£
Income
£
Mortgage term
years
Interest rate
%
£
Property price
£
Monthly repayments

How our mortgage affordability calculator works

Rightmove browser screenshot

1. Enter a few simple details about yourself

To get started, enter a few simple details about your income, deposit amount, and preferred mortgage term.
Affordability calculator screenshot

2. See your budget

We'll then estimate the mortgage amounts you could afford, along with a range of monthly repayments. We can show you your full buying potential, as well as a more comfortable mortgage option.
Find a home

3. Find a home within your budget

You can then use these figures to explore the UK's largest choice of homes, with a better understanding of what you could afford, helping you make a plan to get there.
Ladies with smartphone

What is a mortgage?

A type of loan you can use to help you buy a house or a flat, or another type of property.
  • You'll usually need to pay a deposit up front, and then you can apply to borrow the rest you need from a lender to cover the purchase price of the property.
  • Your deposit amount and your income are important factors in understanding how much you can afford.
  • A mortgage is a long-term loan that can last for different lengths of time. You can choose a mortgage term to help spread the cost of the mortgage anywhere between 5 to 40 years usually.
Gentlemen chatting at porch

What type of mortgage can I get?

Fixed-rate
  • Your interest rate is guaranteed for a set period.
  • Monthly payments won't change until a specified date.
  • You can fix your mortgage interest rate for between 2 and 5 years, up to 10 years, or longer.
Tracker
  • Your interest rate is usually linked to the Bank of England's (BoE) Base Rate, plus a percentage amount set by the lender.
  • The mortgage interest rate can vary throughout the tracker period.
Standard Variable Rate (SVR)
  • Your interest rate is set by your lender.
  • It's usually the rate you'd automatically move onto at the end of a fixed or tracker deal.
  • SVRs tend to have higher rates than a lender's fixed or tracker products.
Discount Standard Variable Rate
  • Gives you a discount on the lender's SVR, for a set period of time.
  • The discounted rate will move up and down, in line with the lender's SVR.
Interest-only
  • A loan for a property where your monthly repayment covers just the interest on the amount you borrowed.
  • You won't be repaying the amount you borrowed. This will need to be paid in full when the mortgage term ends, so you'll need to have a financial repayment plan in place to show the lender how you'll pay off the final amount.

What are the most important factors for calculating mortgage affordability?

The most important factors influencing your mortgage affordability are your income, regular expenses, and the size of your deposit. Lenders will look at how much you earn and what you spend each month to work out what you can comfortably repay.

Income

Lenders look at your household income to understand how much you can comfortably repay each month. If you're buying with someone, their income will also be included.

Income sources include salary, bonuses, or regular freelance work. This is how they assess your borrowing power.

Outgoings

Your regular expenses and outgoings will reduce the amount you can put toward a mortgage.

Outgoings that lenders look at include credit cards, loans (including student loans), childcare costs, subscriptions, and general monthly bills.

Size of your deposit

A larger deposit usually means you can borrow more at better rates.

This is because it lowers the risk for lenders and can reduce your monthly repayments.

Your questions about how much you could borrow with a mortgage answered

Our Mortgages guides
How many times my salary can I borrow for a mortgage?
Your income forms the basis of how much you can borrow with a mortgage. Generally, the maximum loan amount is capped at a multiple of around 4.5 times your income. There are exceptions to this, and the cap can be higher, but this can depend on a range of factors, the main one being how much you earn.
How much deposit do I need to buy a house in the UK?
Lenders generally offer a mortgage of up to 90% of the property value, so you’ll need to be able to pay a deposit of 10% of the value of the home you want to buy. Some lenders offer mortgages of up to 95% loan-to-value. The higher your deposit is, the more lenders and mortgage products you’ll have to choose from.
How long is a ‘normal’ mortgage term?
Actually, there’s no such thing. Traditionally home-buyers have tended to go for a 25-year mortgage. However, most lenders will offer longer terms to help spread the cost of a mortgage over 30 to 40 years, or more, depending on your age. Longer mortgage terms are becoming an increasingly popular option to improve affordability by reducing monthly payments. However, taking a mortgage over a longer term will increase the amount of interest that has to be paid. When you apply for a mortgage, you can choose the term you think you can most comfortably afford.
What is Loan to Value (LTV)?
LTV is expressed as a percentage, and it reflects the size of the mortgage you need as a proportion of the value of the home you want to buy. The bigger the deposit you have, the lower the LTV, and vice-versa.
What are the current UK mortgage rates?
Lenders change the rates of their mortgage products regularly. We've added an average rate from the six largest UK lenders to our mortgage calculator, so you can calculate a monthly repayment figure. You can also check the average UK mortgage rates and compare how they’ve changed since the previous week. And compare the rates across a range of loan to value (LTV) percentages.
What is a Mortgage in Principle?

A Mortgage in Principle, or MIP for short, is also known as an Agreement in Principle, Decision in Principle, Mortgage Agreement in Principle, or a Mortgage Promise. It’s a personalised document confirming an amount of money which a lender believes they would be able to lend you, based on the information you’ve shared in your application.

A Mortgage in Principle is specific to you and, together with your deposit, it can give you an indication of the property price range you can search within. So you can search for your new home with more confidence.