About FreeMortgageCalc

The mortgage industry has a content problem. Search "how much house can I afford" and you'll get a wall of articles written by SEO teams at lending companies — each one nudging you toward filling out a lead form so a loan officer can call you twelve times a day. We hated that. So we built the opposite.

FreeMortgageCalc started as a side project to answer the questions our friends and family kept asking. "What's PMI and why is it on my quote?" "My agent said 'escrow' — what does that mean?" "Is a 15-year mortgage actually better?" The answers exist all over the internet, but they're buried under sales pitches, hidden behind sign-ups, or written in a tone that assumes you already know what an LTV ratio is.

Every article on this site is built around one rule: if your grandmother couldn't follow it, rewrite it. We use real numbers, real examples, and the same plain English we'd use explaining things to a friend at a coffee shop.

The site is funded entirely by display advertising (Google AdSense). That's it. We don't sell leads to mortgage companies, we don't take affiliate kickbacks for recommending specific lenders, and we don't have a "premium" tier.

The trade-off of staying truly independent is that you'll see ads. We try to keep them out of the way and never inside the calculator results, because nothing is more frustrating than a spinning ad covering up a number you're trying to read. If an ad ever feels intrusive or inappropriate for the context, please email us — we genuinely act on that feedback.

We also don't track you across the web, build behavioral profiles, or sell your data. The calculator does all its math right in your browser — your loan numbers never leave your device. See the Privacy Policy for the details.

Every guide on this site is written and edited by humans who have actually been through the home-buying process — most of us multiple times, in multiple states, including refinances, FHA loans, conventional loans, and one particularly painful condo purchase that became a learning experience.

We update content when rules change. The most recent major review covered PMI thresholds, FHA MIP rules, conforming loan limits, and the most current closing-cost averages. We don't promise the numbers in every article are accurate to the day — interest rates and lending guidelines change constantly — but we promise the concepts and frameworks are durable and the methodology is sound.

When we're not sure about something, we say so. When the answer is "it depends," we explain what it depends on rather than picking a side. And when we're flat-out wrong about something, we fix it and credit whoever pointed it out (we mean it — the contact form is right above this section).

You'll see a friendly little house character named Cal popping up across the site dropping tips. Cal is our mascot and unofficial mortgage tour guide. The idea is simple: a mortgage page can feel cold and intimidating, especially when you're staring at a six-figure number that represents a decade or more of your life. A tiny house with eyes makes the whole experience a little more human.

Cal's tips aren't just decoration — each one is a real piece of practical advice we've seen save people money or stress. If you ever want to suggest a tip Cal should be giving, that's another great reason to email us.