THE DOWNS MORTGAGE GROUP • DMV MORTGAGE CALCULATORS
Mortgage Calculators Built for DC, Maryland & Virginia
Real county tax rates, 2026 tax law, and VA entitlement math. The estimate you get here is the estimate you should expect on a real Loan Estimate.
Built and maintained by John Downs, Certified Mortgage Advisor · NMLS 476406 · Vellum Mortgage, Inc., NMLS 1657323 · $1.5B+ closed in the DMV · Last updated July 2026
START HERE
What Will It Really Cost?
Closing costs in the DMV are genuinely some of the most complicated in the country, and most online calculators just ignore that. Maryland has 23 counties with 23 different transfer tax rates, ranging from Somerset's 0.33% to Baltimore City's variable rate, which can exceed 1.5%. Virginia's closing costs vary with your down payment and loan structure, so static estimates can't account for them. DC charges both a recordation tax and a transfer tax, which a flat "3% closing costs" estimate badly understates.
So we built a calculator for each jurisdiction to handle all of it. State and county taxes are calculated separately, title insurance is tiered correctly by price, and recording fees, settlement costs, and escrow accounts are sized to your actual scenario for VA, FHA, and Conventional loans. Not a ballpark. Real numbers for the place you're actually buying. Pick yours below.
But payment is only half the story...
THE REST OF THE STORY
The Tax Code Changes Your Real Cost
Here's what most buyers never model: the 2026 tax rules quietly rewrote the math on owning in the DMV. The SALT deduction cap jumped to $40,400, a big deal in high-tax Maryland and DC, and mortgage interest is deductible on loans up to $750,000. For many buyers, the deductions on a new mortgage put $600 or more per month back into take-home pay compared to renting.
But none of it is automatic. Your deductions have to clear the standard deduction hurdle, $16,100 single or $32,200 married, before you see a dime, and the answer depends on your income, filing status, loan size, and jurisdiction. That's exactly what these two calculators model. Run yours before you assume renting is cheaper, or that your move-up home is out of reach.
What if you don't know your budget yet?
TWO ANSWERS, ONE CALCULATOR
What You Qualify For.
What You're Comfortable Paying.
They're rarely the same number. See your lender approval tiers based on your income, debts, and cash. Then flip it: pick the monthly payment that fits your life and see the exact sale price it supports. Price is a budget, not a goal.
LENDER SAYS
$785,000
YOUR COMFORT PAYMENT
$4,200/mo
YOUR REAL BUDGET
$682,000
CASH BUYING POWER
One Number In, Four Prices Out.
What Your Cash Can Actually Buy.
Income sets what a lender approves. Cash decides what you can get to the closing table, and it is usually a smaller hurdle than people think. Enter your cash and see your maximum price in four ways, including how a seller credit affects it. Your cash goes further than you think.
YOUR CASH
$25,000
ON YOUR OWN
$353,000
WITH SELLER CREDIT
$721,000
First-time buyer purchase in Montgomery County, MD
And for the situations most calculators can't touch...
SPECIALTY TOOLS
The Situations Generic Calculators Can't Touch
Every tool above answers a question most buyers eventually ask. These five answer the questions most people don't know to ask: whether your VA benefit can buy a second home, whether your current house is worth keeping as a rental, what you'd actually pocket in a sale, and whether the points on your quote are a good bet. This is the judgment-intensive work that built this practice, turned into tools you can run yourself.
Now, about lowering the payment itself...
RATE & PAYMENT STRATEGY
Three Ways to Attack the Payment
Rate and payment aren't the same lever, and the smartest buyers pull whichever one their situation calls for. A temporary buydown lowers your payment for the first year or two, usually on someone else's dime. Paying mortgage points lowers your rate permanently. And a recast lowers your payment for good after a lump sum, no refinance required.
Each of these is a specific tool for a specific moment, and each one has a break-even or a catch that the person selling it to you may not mention. These three calculators show you the real math on all of them, so the lever you pull is the one that actually fits your situation, not the one that sounds best in a pitch.
Why I Built These
It started with a simple frustration: the online calculators are wrong. Not a little wrong. Wrong in ways that matter here, where three jurisdictions each play by different rules.
And here's what being wrong actually costs. When the estimate is wrong, people set the wrong budget. When the budget is wrong, they buy the wrong house. And they don't find out until it's too late to fix, at the closing table, or a year in, when the payment that looked fine on some website doesn't feel fine in real life.
The second reason is quieter. Our industry is trained to answer the questions you ask. But most people don't know what questions to ask. Nobody walks in wondering how PMI is priced, whether points are a good bet, or what the tax code does to their real monthly cost. Those questions change outcomes, and they almost never get asked.
I've spent my career as a teacher in this business, training loan officers to be better at helping people through the biggest financial decision of their lives. These calculators are that same work, pointed directly at you. Every tool on this page exists so you can see the details the industry doesn't volunteer, and so the numbers you plan around are the numbers that actually show up.
If something here surprises you, good. That's the point. And if a number ever looks off, tell me. I treat these tools like part of my practice, because they are.
- John
Common Questions
Numbers Are the Starting Point, Not the Answer
These tools get you 90% of the way there. The last 10% is where deals are won: loan structure, negotiation strategy, and knowing which program actually fits. That part is a conversation.
Ran your numbers and want a second set of eyes? Send them over for a custom quote →
John Downs · Certified Mortgage Advisor · NMLS 476406 · Vellum Mortgage, Inc., NMLS 1657323