06/23/2026
Your bank approved you for $480,000. That number means almost nothing.
Lenders calculate what you can borrow, not what you can live on. There is a real difference, and it costs people their financial stability every single day.
Here is the actual math:
Take your monthly take-home pay (not gross). Multiply by 0.28. That is your real mortgage ceiling.
On $6,000 take-home, that is $1,680 a month, which is closer to a $280,000 house, not $480,000.
The bank gets paid either way. You are the one who has to eat.
Run your own numbers before you fall in love with the listing.
Moola breaks this down in plain English, no jargon, no agenda, just the numbers that actually matter for your life.
Download Moola on the App Store.