This calculator estimates the maximum home price you can afford in Maine. It applies the standard 28/36 debt-to-income rule to your income and debts, then builds Maine’s 1.24% effective property tax and about $1,200 a year in homeowners insurance into your monthly housing budget before solving for the mortgage you can carry.
How it works
The 28/36 rule sets two caps on your gross monthly income. The front-end cap allows 28% of income for housing; the back-end cap allows 36% for housing plus all other debts. Your binding housing budget is the smaller of the two:
gross monthly = annual income / 12
front-end housing = gross monthly * 0.28
back-end housing = gross monthly * 0.36 - existing monthly debts
housing budget = min(front-end, back-end)Maine’s recurring ownership costs are then removed from that budget. Property tax runs about 1.24% of the home’s value per year and insurance about $1,200 per year, so the monthly amount left for principal and interest is:
P&I budget = housing budget - (home value * 0.0124 / 12) - (1200 / 12)Because property tax scales with the home’s value, the tool solves iteratively, then inverts the amortization formula to find the maximum loan and adds your down payment to get the maximum home price.
Example
On a $90,000 household income with $400 a month of existing debts and a $40,000 down payment at 6.5% over 30 years, the back-end cap gives a housing budget of about $2,100 a month. After carving out roughly $317 for Maine property tax and $100 for insurance, the remaining payment supports a loan of about $266,340 — for a maximum home price near $306,340.
Notes
This is an estimate only and not financial, tax, or lending advice. Maine’s 1.24% rate is a statewide effective average — your county and municipality may differ, so confirm with the Maine Department of Revenue and your county assessor. Insurance, PMI (if you put less than 20% down), HOA dues, and your credit profile all affect what a lender will actually approve.