Introduction
This home loan calculator shows what your repayments could be. Type in your loan amount, your loan term, and your interest rate. You will see your weekly, fortnightly, or monthly repayment right away. You will also see how much interest you pay over the whole loan.
The calculator has two parts. The Repayment Calculator works out what you will pay each week, fortnight, or month. The Borrowing Power tool uses your income and your bills to guess how much you may be able to borrow.
You can also test a few "what if" ideas:
- Extra repayments: see how much interest you save and how much sooner your loan ends.
- Rate changes: see what happens if rates go up or down.
- Interest only: see your smaller early payments, and the bigger ones that come later.
- Compare loans: put three loans side by side and pick the best one.
Pick a fixed or variable home loan for an owner occupied home or an investment property, or just type in your own rate. A chart shows how your loan balance drops each year, and a table lists the numbers year by year. There is also a step-by-step section that shows the maths behind every answer.
These numbers are estimates only. Your real rate and repayment depend on your loan, your deposit, and the lender's checks.
How to use our Home Loan Calculator
Enter your loan amount, loan term, interest rate and how often you want to pay. The home loan calculator shows your repayment, the total interest you will pay, how long the loan takes to pay off, and how much you may be able to borrow.
Repayment Calculator
Loan Purpose: Pick Owner Occupied if you will live in the home, or Investment if you will rent it out. This changes the loan products and rates you can pick.
Loan Amount: Type how much you want to borrow. This is the price of the home minus your deposit. If your deposit is less than 20% of the property's value, CommBank usually requires Lenders Mortgage Insurance and adds the premium to the loan, so include it here.5 The lowest amount is $10,000.
Loan Term: Type how many years you want to pay the loan back over, from 1 to 30 years. A longer term means smaller repayments but more interest.
Repayment Type: Choose Principal & Interest to pay down the loan, or Interest Only to pay just the interest for a while. If you pick Interest Only, choose how many years that lasts. Interest only is not available in the last five years of a loan, so the loan term must be at least five years longer than the interest-only period.3 When you pick a product from the list, the calculator uses its interest-only rate for those years.
Repayment Frequency: Choose weekly, fortnightly or monthly repayments. Weekly and fortnightly repayments add up to the same amount each year as monthly ones.
Interest Rate: Pick "Choose a product" to use a listed home loan rate, or "Enter my own rate" to type your own rate between 0.01% and 20% p.a.
Home loan product: Pick a fixed rate or variable rate loan from the list. Variable rates are listed by LVR, so pick the band your loan falls in.6 Wealth Package rates come with a $395 annual fee.4 When the fixed term ends, a fixed loan goes back to the Standard Variable Rate for your loan purpose and repayment type, less any package discount.4
Extra repayment: Type any extra money you can pay on top of your normal repayment. The calculator shows the interest you save and the time you cut off your loan.
Interest rate change: Pick a rate rise or rate cut, or choose Custom and type your own change. This shows what your repayment would be if rates move.
Scenario B and C: Type a loan amount, rate, term, repayment type and frequency for two other loans. The table and chart compare them with your loan.
Graph or Table: Use the buttons to see your loan as a chart or as a year-by-year table.
Borrowing Power Calculator
Gross annual income (applicant 1): Type your pay for one year before tax.
Gross annual income (applicant 2): Type the yearly pay before tax for the person buying with you. Type 0 if you are buying alone.
Monthly living expenses: Type what you spend each month on food, bills, travel, insurance and fun.
Other loan repayments: Type what you pay each month for car loans and personal loans. For each credit card, add 3% of its limit, because a lender may count a card at 3% of its full limit each month.2
Number of dependants: Pick how many children or others you support.
Loan term: Type how many years you want the new loan to run for, up to 30 years.
Interest rate: Type the rate you think you will get. We add the 3.00% serviceability buffer APRA requires, to check you can still pay if rates rise.2
Repayment type and frequency: Choose Principal & Interest or Interest Only, then pick weekly, fortnightly or monthly repayments.
Press Calculate to see your results, or Reset to start again.
Home Loan Repayments and Borrowing Power Explained
A home loan is money a bank lends you to buy a house or unit. You pay it back over many years, plus interest. Interest is the cost of using the bank's money. The time you have to pay it back is called the loan term, for example 25 or 30 years.
What Your Repayment Is Made Of
Each repayment has two parts:
- Principal – the part that lowers what you owe.
- Interest – the fee the bank charges on what you still owe.
On a long loan, most of each early payment goes to interest. As your balance drops, more goes to principal. This is why a small extra payment early can save a lot.
Principal & Interest vs Interest Only
Principal and interest (P&I) pays down the loan every month, so you own more of your home over time. Interest only (IO) means you only pay the interest for a set time. At CommBank the maximum interest-only period at any one time is five years.3 Your payment is smaller at first, but you still owe the full amount when the IO period ends. Then payments jump higher, because you must repay the same debt in fewer years. IO can suit property investors, including with buy to let mortgages. CommBank allows up to 15 years of interest only in total over the life of an investment loan, against 5 years for an owner occupied loan.3 Interest-only rates tend to be higher than principal and interest rates.3
Fixed Rate vs Variable Rate
A fixed rate stays the same for a set number of years. Your payment does not change, even if rates rise. When the fixed term ends, the loan usually moves to the bank's standard variable rate. A variable rate can go up or down at any time, which changes your payment.
LVR and Why It Matters
LVR means Loan to Value Ratio. It is your loan amount divided by the property value. If you borrow $600,000 on a $750,000 home, your LVR is 80%. A lower LVR usually gets you a lower rate.6 An LVR over 80% often means paying Lenders Mortgage Insurance (LMI).5 As you pay down the loan your home equity grows and your LVR falls.
Repayment Frequency
You can pay monthly, fortnightly or weekly. Fortnightly and weekly payments are worked out from the monthly amount, so you pay the same total each year. Paying half your monthly repayment every fortnight is different: 26 half payments add up to 13 monthly repayments a year, which pays the loan off sooner.
Comparison Rate
The comparison rate mixes the interest rate with standard fees into one number.1 It gives a fairer way to compare two loans than the headline rate alone.
How Borrowing Power Works
Borrowing power is the largest loan a bank thinks you can repay. Lenders look at your income after tax, your living costs, other debts like car loans and credit cards, and how many people you support. What is left over each month is your surplus, and that surplus sets your loan size.
Banks also add a serviceability buffer of at least 3.0 per cent on top of the real rate, as APRA requires.2 So a 6% loan is tested at 9%. This checks you could still pay if rates rise. It is why your borrowing power falls when rates go up.
Ways to Pay Less Interest
- Make extra repayments, even small ones.
- Choose a shorter loan term if you can afford the higher payment.
- Keep your LVR low with a bigger deposit.
- Compare rates and ask your lender for a better deal.
- Pay down other debts before you apply.
Buying also brings one-off costs. Budget for stamp duty, closing costs and moving costs before you settle.
These numbers are estimates only. Your real rate, fees and approved loan amount depend on the lender's checks and your full financial situation.