Mortgage and loan calculators – A real estate agent told me recently that she’s seen a small uptick in house sales in my little town. Along with most Americans who own, or plan to buy, homes, my wife and I are always worried about how the current economy will affect us. Any positive news, no matter how small, is a big deal.
If you’re considering getting a mortgage or refinancing application, the App Store has more than a dozen apps from which to choose. Many are free and those that are paid are only a couple of bucks or so.
Mortgage calculators apps are alike in the ways that matter most: You can enter loan amounts, amount of your down payment, interest rate, term of the loan and other essential information and then run calculations against the data.
You can view the results of your calculations per month, year or over the lifetime of the loan and you can save your loans for reference. One other feature you often see is the ability to play “What if?” using a variety of scenarios.
What else do you need? I favour any app that makes it as easy as possible to enter data, that means a good-sized keyboard to enter numbers, and ideally, a set of scroll wheels to enter dates, and a few charts and graphs to display my data. After that, I look for a visually appealing work screen, with a polished, intuitive interface.
Here’s a quick rundown of the apps that pass the mild-acid test and may interest you:
Mortgage Calculator Pro, from SVT Software, is the best-selling paid app ($0.99) at the moment. It meets most of my criteria, although I think there are better-looking apps out there.
CalcsPro – Mortgage Calculators (With Estimated Tax Savings), from Rajesh Jain, is another paid app ($1.99) worth checking out. It’s more comprehensive than most, good looking, and is capable of displaying charts containing information such as post-tax interest, estimated tax savings and principle.
Morgulator+Mortgage Payment Calculator, from David Holzer, is currently on sale for $0.99. It’s streamlined and functional and it’s easy to compare one mortgage to another. One feature Morgulator has that some apps lack is the ability to email mortgage summaries.
RECalc-Real Estate Mortgage Loan Calculator, from Anil Baja, is a button pusher’s delight. In addition to the usual loan calculation functions, this paid app ($1.99) also has a fancy mathematical calculator.
Home Buying Power, from NotTooShabby Software, is visually a bit busy for my tastes, but it gets the job done. It’s a paid app ($1.99) that enables you to save a list and details of the home’s you’ve looked at to buy. None of the other apps I looked at has that feature.
CalcsPro – Mortgage Calculators (With Estimated Tax Savings) and Home Buyer Power would be my top picks. Keep in mind, I haven’t looked at every mortgage app because there are so many. If you know of better ones, throw a tip into the comments.
