VA Loan GuideFree educational tool · Independent · No sign-up
How much home can you buy with your VA benefit?
An honest estimate from real VA underwriting math. It isn’t a rate quote or a pre-approval. It’s a starting picture you can check for yourself, and it takes about a minute.
Real VA underwriting mathNothing to sign up forEvery number checkable at the source
Salary or base pay before taxes. BAH has its own field below. Add it up in the pay calculator ↗
Car, student loans, credit-card minimums.
A what-if number, not a quote. Your lender's preapproval has your real one.
Where do people get this?
A lender’s preapproval gives you the only rate tied to your file.
A public daily index shows roughly where VA rates sit right now: the VA 30-year rate index (Federal Reserve data) ↗. A third-party site, not affiliated with this one and not an endorsement.
Or type any number and watch how the answer moves.
Austin · estimating 1.74% property tax
Active duty: your housing allowance. Not sure? Look it up in the BAH tool ↗
Subsistence allowance, a flat monthly rate. The pay calculator fills it in ↗
Everyone in the home. This drives the VA residual-income requirement.
Auto-set from ZIP; the residual table varies by region.
Household and region drive the VA residual-income test. Test residual income on its own ↗
Drives the $0.14/sq ft maintenance + utilities estimate.
Estimated · TX has no state income tax. Edit to match your paystub.
Funding fee is 2.15% for first use, 3.30% for subsequent.
Enter an interest rate above to see your buying power.
Educational tool. Estimates only based on standard VA underwriting guidelines and the inputs you provide. Not a rate quote, pre-qualification, or commitment to lend.
Fill in income and rate to preview your estimated buying power here.
Need a starting rate? Mortgage News Daily publishes free daily market averages: 30-year VA and 30-year conventional for comparison. Those are market averages from an independent publisher, not quotes from this site; enter whatever rate a lender actually offers you.
How it works
From your numbers to a clear picture, in three short steps.
Nobody calls you afterward, because we never get your number. You move at your own pace.
STEP 01
Enter your numbers
Income, debt, ZIP, and a rate you have seen quoted recently. That's it. We never ask who you are.
Sixty seconds
STEP 02
Get an honest estimate
Real VA underwriting math. We show you the buying-power number, the full monthly breakdown, and the assumptions behind every line.
Instant
STEP 03
Go as deep as you want
Each piece of the math behind your number has its own plain-language guide if you want to dig deeper. They're free, and they don't end in a pitch.
When you're ready
How the math actually works
Three constraints decide what you can afford. The VA benefit changes one of them.
01 / Income vs debt
The 41% DTI ceiling
VA underwriting allows total debts including the new mortgage up to 41% of your gross monthly income. It is one of the two tests that set your ceiling.
02 / Cash after expenses
Residual income
VA cares less about ratios and more about the cash you have left after everything is paid. Strong residual income can lift you above the 41% line.
03 / The benefit
No down, no PMI
Full entitlement removes the largest barrier in conventional lending. With full entitlement, there is no county loan limit for a VA loan.
Watch
Or watch it happen.
Three animated episodes that follow the benefit from the first question to the keys.
Verifiable
Every number on this site is one you can check.
Method
VA Pamphlet 26-7
Underwriting formulas follow the VA lender handbook
Data
Official tables
Residual income and funding fee figures from published government sources
Independence
Unaffiliated
No lender sponsorship, no lead sales, no paid rankings
Rates
Yours to enter
We never advertise or quote a rate. You type the one you've been quoted