loanCruncher FAQs

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Where is the "calculate" or "do it" or "equals" button to make it do the calculation?
There isn't one. The calculations are re-done automatically whenever you change one of the numbers. When you are done entering a number you may press the enter button on your device, which will do the calculation and move the focus to the next field, or you may simply tap on any open area of the screen.
Why do you say all these things are estimates? Shouldn't a loan calculation be straight-forward?
A simple loan payment calculation is straight-forward, and is the basis of loanCruncher's calculations. That loan payment calculation is accurate, but mortgages are not simple loans--there are lots of fees, regulations, and slight variations in how different lenders calculate different components. So while the base calculations are accurate, these variations mean that you will have to get the final answer from your lender. But, if you give loanCruncher accurate information, it should generate an estimate that is reasonably close to what you can expect your mortgage payment to be. Note that you should verify the correct PMI percentages and behavior (accessed from Preferences) with your lender, as well as the rate, points and closing costs. Taxes for a property are often available as a matter of public record. Note that lenders may also require you to escrow more for taxes and insurance than the actual monthly values, so your actual payment may be more than what loanCruncher estimates. To account for such things you may wish to inflate the values entered for taxes and insurance.
Why aren't cents shown?
To help avoid the appearance of accuracy: loanCruncher's outputs are estimates and should be treated as such. See the previous question. It makes little sense to show results to the penny when the results are quite possibly off by dollars, due to things that loanCruncher can't know.
Are these PMI numbers accurate?
Only if you changed them to match the values that your lender is using. The PMI rates change with a variety of factors and so you should ask about the correct ones for your situation. The default values seemed to be in the right ballpark when we did some web research before publishing the app, but like we said--these rates change.
What is "Assoc. Fees"?
This is an area to enter home owners' association or condo fees, if those are part of your mortgage payment or if you simply want to budget for them in your total monthly payment.
How does loanCruncher calculate what I can get for my budgeted payment and cash?
First, loanCruncher calculates a too large and too small price, then narrows the price band until it calculates the total price that meets your criteria. Generally loanCruncher gives preference to optimizing the payment, trying to get it within $10 or 1% of your target payment, while trying to get your cash outlay to within $1000 or 1% of your available cash. But see the following question for why loanCruncher might not be able to hit those target ranges.
When trying to figure out what I can get for my budgeted payment and cash, why did the final payment amount come out significantly lower than what I entered?
Your down payment is probably right on the edge of one of the PMI bands, and if the purchase price went higher, you would trigger larger PMI payments. This effect is especially pronounced if your down payment is on the edge of 20% which could take you from 0 to significant PMI payments.
How can I save scenarios for later comparison?
You can save scenarios with the "save scenario" which can be reached by the "Saved Scenarios" option on the application menu, or from the details scene by tapping on the plus sign icon in the lower left corner. To save the current scenario to one of the five slots, tap on any description and overwrite it with a new description.
Why is preferences sometimes grayed out?
The preferences directly affect how the calculations are done, so scenes that don't recalculate do not allow you to go to preferences to avoid confusion; if you went to preferences and returned to the detail scene (for example) the values would not recalculate.
Why is "What Can I Get?" sometimes grayed out?
That option is only available from the first payment scene.
Can I save my "What Can I get Scenarios"?
Certainly, the same way you save regular purchase scenarios.
I'm thinking about refinancing. Can loanCruncher help?
Yes. Enter your current loan information, including the original purchase price, down payment, and all the other relevant information from your first loan. Note that things like taxes and insurance usually increase over time, so use your current tax and insurance information to generate an estimate that is close to your current payment. (Note some variation is expected since different loan servicers will have different escrow requirements.) Save that scenario. Now enter the information for your new loan, using the current market value of your house as the purchase price and your current equity as the down payment. Update the rate and PMI information to reflect the current values to get a new estimated payment. Save that scenario, and now you can compare the two scenarios side by side.
Why doesn't loanCruncher handle bi-weekly loans?
Different mortgage companies handle these programs differently, so rather than coming up with a scenario that may not be at all like what your mortgage company uses, we decided not to support bi-weekly payments at this time. Note that some experts suggest that you are better off simply adding an additional amount to your monthly payment with a note that the extra amount should be applied to the principal. (Some companies will by default apply the extra amount to interest if you don't tell them to apply it to the principal!)
Can loanCruncher estimate what the payoff value will be for the loan after a certain time period?
Yes! From the details scene, tap the "i" icon in the center of the bottom of the screen to get to the Payoff calculator. Enter the number of months or years and tap anywhere else on the screen. If you have been making regular, consistent extra principal payments, enter the amount and the frequency under "Extra Paid". Note that if you enter a frequency other than monthly, loanCruncher still applies the appropriate pro-rated amount each month for the purposes of calculating the payoff amount. So entering $100/month or $1200/yr will result in the same payoff value (assuming you're using a whole number of years), but in real life that would not be so. Paying more on the principal sooner will result in a lower payoff value.
I entered the same information today as I did the other day and I get a different result. What happened?
Remember that the result is dependent upon the preferences settings as well as the information you entered. Changing those settings can significantly change your results. If you have saved these scenarios, look at the detailed Scenario Comparison to check the Preference settings for each.
I want to enter taxes, insurance and closing costs but those fields aren't appearing on the screen. Why?
Your preference is set to Simple Loan. Change it to Mortgage Estimator to have those fields available to you.
I used the "What Can I Get" function to get a maximum purchase price. Is that how much house I can afford to buy?
LoanCruncher makes no assumptions, attempts or other indications of calculating what you can afford. How much a person can afford depends on many variables beyond the scope of this loan calculation estimator. "What Can I Get" helps you with your planning by giving you an estimated maximum house price under certain conditions, including a maximum monthly payment, but it cannot factor in any outside conditions or circumstances. You have to decide how much you can afford each month. If you give loanCruncher accurate information, loanCruncher can help you determine a maximum price by factoring in additional conditions that affect your monthly payment.
What is "Tot Int" on the Comparison screen?
That's the total amount of interest you will pay over the course of the loan. Usually this is a scary big number!
What are these NaN doing on the display?
Oops--you shouldn't see those. They generally mean that there is a value someplace that is not initialized properly or is non-numeric. We took care to try to keep you from being able to make non-numeric entries, but you might still find a way to do it. Or there might be a bug we missed. Try examining your entries to make sure that they are all valid. Blanks should be treated as zeros, but if you meant to enter zero, it wouldn't hurt to try explicitly entering 0 if you are having this problem. If you can't find the problem, email us the scenario comparison and indicate which scenario is having the problem.
Will there be future enhancements to loanCruncher?
We certainly hope so! We have some ideas for features to add, but if you have ideas of what you'd like to see in a future version, please email us. We're always happy to take feature suggestions and they will drive future enhancements, but we obviously can't promise when (or even if) a new version will be available. But loanCruncher resulted directly from a suggestion from a twoCalc customer--so we do listen!
Who wrote this?
The design, coding, and testing of loanCruncher was carried out entirely by mikagika, ltd. Any representation to the contrary is false--please let us know if you hear of somebody indicating that they are responsible for any mikagika product.
Thanks--I really like this!
No, thank you! We appreciate your business. We also appreciate reviews in the App Catalog! :)