CommuniCasita

Before you talk to a lender, find out what a house actually does to your finances — at closing, in five years, and in fifteen. Most mortgage calculators start at "down payment = $50,000" and tell you a monthly payment. CommuniCasita starts somewhere far more useful: your actual balance sheet. Enter your accounts, your holdings, and what you paid for them, then watch what really happens when you turn those assets into a house. MODEL THE WHOLE PURCHASE Build a scenario from the house you're looking at: price, property tax, insurance, HOA, maintenance, and itemised closing costs. Then stack the borrowing however you'd actually structure it — a 30-year fixed, a 15-year, an FHA or VA loan, an ARM with caps, interest-only, a HELOC, or an SBLOC borrowed against your portfolio. Add extra principal payments and switch between monthly, bi-weekly, weekly or quarterly schedules to see what each one…