The mortgage payment your lender quotes leaves out upkeep. Before you buy a home, add 2% of its price per year for maintenance, plus any homeowners association dues, and check that the property tax estimate uses your purchase price. Then bank the gap between that total and your rent for three months to test whether you can carry it.
That quoted payment often includes property taxes and homeowners insurance, collected through escrow. It has no line for a dead water heater or a roof at the end of its life.
Upkeep is usually the biggest cost the payment leaves out. In Bankrate’s 2025 study of the yearly costs of owning a typical single-family home, maintenance came to $8,808, more than property taxes and insurance combined. Bankrate figured it at 2% of the home’s price, which on a $400,000 house works out to about $667 a month.
The escrow portion isn’t fixed, either. Even on a fixed-rate loan, the payment rises when your property tax bill or insurance premium does. In LERETA’s 2026 survey of 1,037 homeowners, three in five of those whose payment had gone up said the increase surprised them.
So before you make an offer, add up the house’s full monthly cost yourself, not just the loan payment:
- Check that the tax estimate uses your purchase price, not the seller’s bill. California and Florida, for example, reset a home’s assessed value to market value after a sale.
- Get a homeowners insurance quote for the address itself.
- Add homeowners association dues and 2% of the price a year for maintenance.
- Ask the seller for 12 months of utility bills to see what the house costs to run.
Then run a trial. For three months, move the difference between that total and your current rent and utilities into savings on the day rent is due. If the transfers squeeze your budget, so will the house. Otherwise, they’ve started the repair fund you’ll need after closing.
A budget that covers only the lender’s payment can’t cover the house.
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