How much should I put down?

That depends on thresholds this calculator deliberately does not assert — minimum requirements and insurance rules vary by lender and loan program. What it does tell you exactly is the consequence of whatever percentage you choose, in both time and price.

Where should I keep a down payment fund?

Somewhere the balance cannot fall before you need it, which usually means the return you enter here should be a conservative one. A high assumed return on a three-year horizon is the most common way this calculation flatters itself.

Does this account for home prices rising while I save?

No — it holds the price you entered constant. If you expect prices to move, re-run it with a higher price, or use the inflation calculator to work out what today’s price becomes at your horizon.

Should I include closing costs in the target?

Not in the percentage, but do budget for them. They are one-time purchase costs separate from the down payment; the clean way to model them is to raise your target amount rather than the percentage.

Is a bigger down payment always better?

It lowers the mortgage, the payment and the total interest, so on the mortgage alone yes. Against that, waiting longer means more months of rent and more months out of the market. The two numbers on this page are what let you weigh them.

Down Payment Savings Calculator — US

The saving, year by year

What you have contributed, what the return has added, and how close that puts you to the target at the end of each year.

Progress towards a $130,000 down payment saving $1,200 a month at 3% a year.
Year	Contributed	Growth	Balance	Of target
Year 1	$14,400	$960	$40,360	31%
Year 2	$28,800	$2,387	$56,187	43%
Year 3	$43,200	$4,296	$72,496	56%
Year 4	$57,600	$6,701	$89,301	69%
Year 5	$72,000	$9,616	$106,616	82%
Year 6	$86,400	$13,059	$124,459	96%
Year 7	$91,200	$14,326	$130,526	100%
Target	—	—	$130,000	100%

Compounded monthly on the balance, with each contribution added at the end of its month. Assumes the price you entered does not move while you save.

The target is a price times a percentage, so lowering either one shortens the wait — and lowering the percentage raises the mortgage that follows.
Return matters less than contribution over short horizons, but on a six-or-seven-year saving plan it is still worth roughly a year.
The price your current savings already support is the more actionable number when the timeline comes back longer than you hoped.
This calculator makes no claim about minimum down payments or mortgage insurance — set the target percentage to the one that applies to you.

How the down payment calculator works

A down payment question is really two questions, and most calculators only answer the first. Given a price and a percentage, how long does it take to save the amount? And — the one people ask second, usually after seeing the first answer — what price does the money already in the account actually support?

This page answers both from the same four inputs. The target is the price times the percentage you set. The time to reach it comes from running your monthly contribution forward, compounding whatever return you enter, until the balance crosses the target. The price supported today is the inverse: your current savings divided by the same percentage.

The second answer is often the more useful one, because it reframes a number of years into a number of dollars. It also makes the trade-off visible: a lower target percentage buys a house sooner and a bigger mortgage afterwards.

The math

The saving is simulated month by month rather than solved in closed form. Each month the balance earns the annual return divided by twelve, then the contribution is added; the loop stops the month the balance reaches the target. That is the same loop that produces the year rows in the table, so the headline figure and the table can never disagree.

The growth figure is tracked separately from the contributions as the simulation runs, which is what lets the table show the two side by side. Contributions plus growth plus your starting balance always equals the balance shown — an identity the test suite asserts rather than trusting.

What this page deliberately does not do is tell you what percentage to aim for. Minimum down payments, mortgage insurance thresholds and what any premium costs are all published-schedule questions with an owner and a revision history; a calculator that hardcoded them would be stating figures it cannot keep verified. The percentage is an input, and the arithmetic around it is exact.

Worked example

A $650,000 home with a 20% target is a $130,000 down payment. Starting from $25,000 saved and adding $1,200 a month at a 3% return, the target arrives in 76 months — six years and four months. Along the way you contribute $91,200 of your own money and the return adds $14,326.

Turn the return off entirely and the same plan takes 88 months, seven years and four months: the 3% return is worth a full year. And the other direction — the $25,000 already saved supports a $125,000 purchase at the same 20%, which is the number that tells you whether a lower target or a cheaper home is the faster route.

Key terms

Down payment: The cash you put towards the purchase price. Everything above it is borrowed, which is why the percentage drives both the mortgage size and the loan-to-value ratio.
Target percentage: The share of the price you intend to put down. It is an input here rather than an assumption, because the thresholds that attach to it are lender-and-program specific.
Compounding: Return earned on return. Over a down-payment horizon it is a modest effect, but a measurable one — this calculator compounds monthly.
Closing costs: The one-time costs of completing a purchase, separate from the down payment and not modelled here. Budget for them alongside the target rather than inside it.

Down Payment Savings Calculator (US, 2026)