Home Down Payment Calculator

20% is the common threshold for avoiding Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI) on a conventional mortgage, which is why it's a widely used planning benchmark -- but it isn't a universal requirement. FHA loans permit down payments as low as 3.5%, and some conventional and VA loan programs allow even less, so if you're planning around a specific loan product, set Down Payment % to match that program's actual minimum rather than defaulting to 20%.

A higher rate means your existing balance and each month's growing balance earn more interest, so a larger share of the down payment target gets covered by compounding rather than by your own contributions -- this shortens Months to Goal, though the effect is modest for typical savings-account rates and short timelines, since compounding needs both a meaningful rate and time to make a large difference. It matters most when Current Savings is large relative to Monthly Contribution.

If Current Savings already meets or exceeds the Down Payment Target, there's nothing left to save toward the goal, so Remaining to Save reports zero rather than a negative number that would have no real meaning here. In that case Months to Goal is also zero, since the target is already met.

Yes, holding the other inputs fixed -- a larger monthly contribution adds more to the balance every period, so the growing balance reaches the down payment target sooner regardless of the savings rate. The relationship isn't perfectly linear because compounding interest also plays a role, but the direction always holds: more saved each month never lengthens the timeline.