Mortgage Payment
The estimated monthly mortgage payment on the typical home in an area, at a conventional 20% down payment.
The estimated monthly payment on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage for the typical home in an area, assuming a 20% down payment. Zillow builds it from its own home-value estimate and the prevailing mortgage rate, where "mortgage rates are given by the monthly average of rates from the Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey" (Methodology: Affordability Metrics).
This is the only figure on the site that puts a current mortgage rate inside a housing cost measure. Every other cost figure here — median home value, gross rent, owner costs — is a level that moves only with prices, or a Census-reported cost average that reflects whatever mix of old and new mortgages a household happens to hold. This one recomputes what a buyer would owe today, at today's rate, on today's typical home, so it can move even in a month when home values do not.
Metrics in this family#
Mortgage payment
levelThe most recent monthly estimated payment, in dollars, on a 20%-down 30-year fixed-rate mortgage for the typical home in the area.
Considerations#
It is a modeled payment, not an observed one. The figure describes a hypothetical buyer purchasing today at the prevailing rate, not what current homeowners actually pay. Most homeowners locked in a mortgage at a different rate and a different price, so the gap between this figure and the typical household's real monthly cost can be large, especially after a period of rising rates.
It is rate-sensitive in a way home values are not. A period of rising mortgage rates can push this figure up sharply even while the underlying home value barely moves, and a rate decline can pull it down the same way. Reading a change here as a home-price signal will mislead; it is a financing-cost signal layered on top of one.
It assumes one down payment. The 20% assumption is a conventional benchmark, not a description of what any particular buyer puts down. A buyer with a smaller down payment faces a higher payment than this figure shows, both from financing a larger amount and from the mortgage insurance that a smaller down payment typically requires.
It excludes taxes and insurance. This is principal and interest only. Property taxes, homeowner's insurance, and maintenance are real costs of owning the same home and are not included in this figure.
Geography stops at county. Zillow publishes this series only for metro areas and counties, so unlike the Zillow Home Value Index, no ZIP-code or tract-level reading exists or ever will for this measure — see Zillow Mortgage Payment.
References#
- 1Methodology: Affordability Metricshttps://www.zillow.com/research/affordability-methodology-34975/