Free Home Buying Spreadsheet: Mortgage Affordability + Down Payment Calculator

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What Most Free Home Buying Calculators Don't Tell You

If you've searched for a free home buying spreadsheet in the last few months, you've probably hit the same three problems. The first is that most "free" mortgage calculators are lead-capture pages for lenders — you punch in your numbers, they hand you a result, and your phone starts ringing forty-eight hours later with refinance offers. The second is that the calculators that aren't lead-gen are usually one-shot: they answer a single question (monthly payment) and don't help with the other questions you actually have (when can I afford to move, how long until I have the down payment, what's my real budget when I include taxes and insurance and the homeowners insurance my agent forgot to mention).

The third problem is the worst one. Most free home buying calculators give you a number without showing you the math. You don't know whether they're including PMI, what tax assumption they used, whether their "affordability" answer comes from the 28% rule or the 36% rule or some bank's internal model. So you walk away with a number you can't trust and can't verify.

The Home Buying & Mortgage Workbook Lite solves that. It's a real Excel and Google Sheets file with the formulas exposed. You can see exactly how affordability is calculated, exactly what's in the down payment savings projection, and exactly which assumptions you can adjust. No email gate. No lead capture. Available for $1 on Etsy (Etsy's minimum) and free on Lemon Squeezy once that store is live.

What's Unlocked in the Lite Version

Five things in the Lite workbook are fully functional:

Read Me — Walkthrough of the workbook structure. Explains what each tab does, where the formulas live, and where to start.

Beginner Guide — A non-jargon explanation of how mortgages actually work. PMI, escrow, debt-to-income, fixed vs adjustable — the things every first-time buyer has to learn and most lenders explain badly.

Control Panel — The dashboard. Set your income, your existing debts, your target purchase area, and the assumptions you want to use (interest rate, property tax rate, insurance estimate, PMI threshold). Everything in the Affordability and Down Payment tabs flows from these inputs.

Affordability — This is the tab that does the heavy lifting. Given your income, debts, and assumptions, it calculates three numbers: the home price you qualify for, the home price you can comfortably afford (which is almost always lower), and the monthly payment at each price point including taxes, insurance, and PMI if applicable. The math is visible — you can trace every number back to the Control Panel.

Down Payment — A savings tracker that projects how long it will take to hit your down payment goal given your current monthly savings rate. Includes interest if you're saving in a high-yield account, and shows you the trade-off between waiting longer to put 20% down (no PMI) versus moving sooner with a smaller down payment.

The Lite version is enough to answer the two questions most first-time buyers have: what can I afford, and when can I afford it. The locked tabs in the Lite include the full Mortgage Comparison tool, Closing Cost Estimator, PMI Avoidance Strategy, Refinance Calculator, and Home Maintenance Budget — the modules you reach for once you're actually in escrow or after you close. They unlock when you upgrade to the full Home Buying & Mortgage Workbook. There's an upgrade code inside the Lite for 35% off the full version on Etsy.

Excel vs Google Sheets — Which to Pick

Both versions of the Lite workbook are functionally identical. The Excel version includes both a blank and a sample-data file so you can see how it behaves with realistic inputs. The Google Sheets version is delivered as a PDF with clickable copy links — one click and the workbook is in your Drive.

Use Excel if you want offline access, slightly tighter conditional formatting, and a workflow that's just for you. Use Google Sheets if you're buying with a partner or spouse and want both of you to update the same workbook in real time, or if you want to share the Affordability tab with a mortgage broker without emailing files back and forth.

Most users pick the platform they already use for everything else. The math is the same on both.

How to Use the Lite Workbook in Thirty Minutes

The Quick Start Guide PDF that comes with the Lite walks through the full setup. The short version is:

1. Open the Control Panel. Enter your gross monthly income, your existing monthly debt payments (car, student loans, credit cards), and the area you want to buy in.
2. Adjust the assumptions. The defaults are reasonable for most markets, but check the interest rate, property tax rate, and insurance estimate. You can pull current rates from any mortgage news site in two minutes.
3. Open the Affordability tab. Look at the comfortable affordability number, not the qualification number. The qualification number is what a bank will lend you. The comfortable number is what you can actually afford to pay every month for thirty years without resenting it.
4. Open the Down Payment tab. Enter your current savings rate. The projection tells you how many months until 5%, 10%, 15%, and 20% down at your target price point. Adjust the savings rate up and watch the timeline compress.
5. Save the file. Come back in three months. Update your income, debts, and savings. Watch the numbers move.

That's it. No lender call required.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the Lite home buying spreadsheet actually free?

On Etsy it's $1 because that's the lowest price Etsy allows. On Lemon Squeezy (pending approval) it's free. Either way it's not behind an email gate or a lead-capture form.

Does the affordability calculator include PMI?

Yes. If your down payment is under 20% of the purchase price, PMI is automatically calculated into the monthly payment estimate. You can see the line item in the Affordability tab.

Does it work for adjustable-rate mortgages or just fixed?

The Lite version assumes a fixed-rate mortgage with the interest rate you set in the Control Panel. The full version includes a separate adjustable-rate scenario tool. For most first-time buyers, fixed-rate is the right model, so the Lite covers the common case.

Can I use it for a refinance?

The Lite doesn't include the refinance calculator — that's in the full version. The Affordability tab still works for a refinance, but the refinance-specific math (closing cost breakeven, rate differential, term reset) is in the locked tabs.

Does it account for property taxes in my specific state?

You set the property tax rate yourself in the Control Panel, so it works anywhere. Pull your county's property tax rate from your county assessor's site — most have it published. If you can't find it, use 1.1% as a national average; you can refine later.

What happens if I upgrade later?

Transfer your Control Panel inputs once during setup. The full version reads the same input structure, so the rest of the modules (Mortgage Comparison, Closing Costs, PMI Avoidance, Refinance, Maintenance) populate automatically. Setup is typically 15–20 minutes.