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I guess we could have been approved for what the calculator said, but there is NO WAY I wanted to give up that much of my income for housing.

Yea to echo others, the mortgage amounts calculator gives, and what bank will approve for us were both much more than we would have comfortable paying! The bank would have approved us for $100k more than the max amount we were willing to take on as mortgage - guess they don't care how much of our "disposable income" is a fixed daycare expense!

The mortgage calculators in terms of what your payment would be? They are accurate because its a math calculation. What they dont always work for is your actual interest rate (they seem to be much lower than what the going rate actually is that you can lock in). They also dont take into account other monthly fees like property taxes, property insurance, PMI payments etc. I think we pay about $300 more per month than what the actual base mortgage is.

@fussygal: The biggest hang up for us on those is if we factor in daycare as a "debt" (because really its a payment that isn't going away any time soon and takes away our cash) the calculators gave us a much more clear indictor on what would be more comfortable for us.

We did it sort of backwards, in that we decided on a number we were comfortable with for our monthly payment and used that to determine what price range of houses we should be looking at. So for us, the calculators were quite accurate because we weren't looking to find the highest amount we could technically afford and get pre-approval for. The bank never actually told us what the highest amount they'd lend us was -- we told them right upfront what we needed and she was like, "oh, is that all? Are you sure?" and we said yes and that was basically the end of that conversation. So I'm not sure if the calculators would be accurate if we were looking to max out.

Some mortgage calculators don't include pMI. I know the one on Zillow does so I like to use that one because it also includes a place to put in taxes and insurance which is typically rolled into your mortgage payment.

It was around with what the loan officer said we were approved for. The online calculator gave us a range and we weren't comfortable paying more than the median amount (because the mortgage payment would've been too high). We entered in the exact amount of expense we have per month, debt and our salary.

We based our home price range on a monthly payment that we could comfortably afford on DH's salary alone (mortgage + insurance + tax + house related expenses) and based our budget on that. We were approved for a lot more than that and would have been approved for WAY more if we had included my income in the applications, but either of those numbers would have been insane for us.

we're in the process of getting preapproved right now and we've found that it's been pretty backwards to what we thought. we thought we'd give them all our info and then they would tell us what we'd be approved for. instead, we've had to tell them the price range we wanted (which is fine because we know how much we want to spend, but annoying for my brother who is also going through it and can afford a range of things!) and our downpayment (which is variable because we're getting a gift that's TBD), it's been a LONG process.

We told our lender how much we wanted to spend and then he approved us for something like 50k more than that "just in case." But when I did a couple of initial applications with other lenders we did not use, we were approved for a ridiculous sum of money (like twice what we planned on). Getting the loan usually is t the problem. Figuring out what you truly can afford and want to spend is the bigger issue.

@Eko: my loan officer was also telling me about the less than 20% down, no PMI, slightly higher rate options too. I was pleasantly surprised about that and am now leaning heavily toward that option to have more cash on hand for renovations!

@fussygal: we're still in the midst of it. Because I'm self employed and DH just started a new job this year, our income history isn't there although the current income is, so we're filing our tax return ASAP to maximize earnings and nail down our preapproval. My brother is having the same experience as we are though and he's a regular employee with a long work history and very high earnings so I'm not sure that it's just because of our work situation! My dad was asking me why they can't just tell me what we qualify for based on earnings and I'm like, if I knew that, I'd be an excellent loan officer! Maybe it's timing and market?

ETA: my brother and I have both been getting the run around from two different CUs where we've both been members for years. It seems to me like their options are limited where as when I've been going through a loan office that shops around places, there are many more options for us! Like if we wanted to do less than 20% down at the CU, we only had the option of a 15 year or an ARM. Versus with the independent guy, he has lots of different options, including the buyout of PMI mentioned above.

@birdofafeather: I completely thought the no pmi and low down payment depended on various programs you had to qualify for, which I thought I wouldn't. If we needed to come up with 20% we wouldn't be able to get a house this year. So, now we get to get into a house this year and still have a reasonable mortgage.

But I still echo what other people said and suggest that anyone talks to an actual loan broker (not through a bank) for information on getting a house.

@fussygal: We are CU members at 4 different CUs and while we used one for our pre-approval letter (since its fast), we ultimately used Lending Tree for the actual loan. It had banks bid for our business and it was crazy! In the end it was between the Bank of Kansas and Discover Loans and they kept trying to outdo each other! Our bank gave us like $1000 of closing credit and we got so far into the house transaction that we ended up going with them even though the other bank came back and said they would give us $250 more! My husband dealt with the lenders, so I can't personally say what it was like to have lenders call you night and day, but DH was generally pleased we got a very good rate and terms in the end.