Most calculators ask what house you want and hand you a payment. This one starts where you actually are — what you earn, what you owe, what you've saved — and gives you a price range. It also uses your township's real millage instead of a national average, which is the number most calculators get wrong in this state.
The range is the headline. The breakdown is the part you can act on — which loan programs you actually fit, whether it's your ratios or your cash that's capping you (completely different problems, and nobody tells buyers which one they have), what moves the number, and what your township's taxes really look like versus the national average every other calculator used.
Where should I send it? No credit pull, then or ever — that only happens if you and I actually talk.
A calculator can't pull your credit, read the actual tax bill on the actual house, or write the letter a listing agent needs to take your offer seriously. I can do all three, usually same day — I'll reach out shortly. If you'd rather not wait, call or text (810) 819-8686.
Estimate only, for planning. Not a preapproval, not a commitment to lend, and not an offer of credit. No credit is pulled and nothing you type here is stored unless you submit the form. Your actual buying power depends on a full application, verified income and assets, credit review, property type and condition, appraisal, title, and program and investor guidelines — any of which can change the result. Property tax figures use published 2025 principal-residence millage for the city or township you select and assume the taxable value uncaps on sale under MCL 211.27a(3); your actual bill depends on the assessor's valuation, your school district, and whether you file for the Principal Residence Exemption. Insurance is estimated. McKenney Home Lending, LLC · NMLS #2497854 · Equal Housing Opportunity.
Almost every affordability calculator on the internet applies one national property-tax assumption to every address in the country. Michigan doesn't work that way. Rates here are set locally, and they vary sharply between communities that are fifteen minutes apart — so a national average is close to meaningless for a specific address. That is the main reason this tool asks for your township, and the main reason its answer will differ from theirs.
There is a second, smaller thing worth knowing, and it is genuinely particular to Michigan.
Michigan assesses property at 50% of its true cash value — that figure is the state equalized value, or SEV (MCL 211.27a(1), and Article IX §3 of the Michigan Constitution). But the number your tax is actually calculated on is the taxable value, and since Proposal A passed in 1994 the taxable value can only rise each year by the lesser of 5% or inflation. For 2026 the state's multiplier is 1.027.
So a family that has owned the same house since 2009 has a taxable value that has crawled upward a couple of percent a year while the market value ran away from it. Their tax bill is genuinely low. It is also completely irrelevant to you, because MCL 211.27a(3) uncaps the taxable value in the calendar year following a transfer of ownership and resets it to SEV. The cap starts over — from a much higher base.
How much this actually moves your bill varies a great deal, and in plenty of cases it barely moves it at all — in the townships where most buyers around here are shopping, the difference between the seller's rate and a new buyer's often turns out to be small. It is worth understanding rather than worrying about. The point is simply that the number on the listing sheet is the seller's number, not a promise about yours.
And it cuts the other way too: the assessor is not permitted to simply take your purchase price and halve it. MCL 211.27(6) says the price paid "is not the presumptive true cash value of the property transferred." Assessors set values by mass appraisal from a lagging sales study, so in a rising market the reset usually lands somewhat below half of what you paid. This tool assumes the full 50% anyway, which makes its range slightly conservative — the direction you want a mortgage estimate to be wrong.
Michigan has a Principal Residence Exemption (MCL 211.7cc). If the home is your primary residence, it exempts you from your local school district's operating millage — up to 18 mills, and for most districts it is the full 18. On a typical Michigan purchase that is one of the largest single line items in your monthly escrow.
It is not automatic. You file Form 2368 with your township or city. File on or before June 1 and it applies to that year's summer and winter levy; file after June 1 but by November 1 and you get the winter levy only. Miss both and you pay the non-homestead rate for the year — which, for a first-year buyer already absorbing the uncapping, is a second hit on top of the first.
Your closing agent will usually put the form in front of you. Usually. It costs you nothing to confirm it was filed, and quite a lot not to.
This is why the tool above asks for your township and not just your county. In Livingston County, a principal residence in Genoa Township within the Brighton school district carries roughly 19.8 mills. Cross into the City of Howell and it is about 37.9 — nearly double, same county, same state, sometimes a fifteen-minute drive apart.
That gap is larger and more reliable than anything the uncapping rule does, and it is the reason a national average can't answer this question for you. Run the tool twice with two townships you would genuinely consider — for a lot of buyers the tax line, not the list price, is what decides which one works.
No. It is an estimate built from what you typed, and nothing was verified. A preapproval means I have looked at your income and asset documentation and pulled your credit. That is the document a listing agent takes seriously, and it is free.
No. Nothing is pulled and nothing is submitted. The math runs entirely in your browser. If you fill in the form at the bottom, that sends me your contact details — still no credit pull until you and I have actually spoken.
Because one number would be false precision. The low end is a comfortable fit; the top end is roughly where an underwriter would still approve you but your monthly budget gets tight. Where you should actually shop inside that range is a personal decision, not a math problem — and most people should be nearer the low end.
Deliberately. A payment quoted without a verified rate, real taxes for a real address, and an actual insurance quote is a made-up number, and buyers anchor to it. The price range is the number that changes what you do next. When you have an address, I will give you a real payment on a real Loan Estimate.
Usually it is monthly debts or cash rather than income, and both are more fixable than people assume. It can also be the program — if you are a veteran, or buying in a USDA-eligible area, or self-employed and documenting income the hard way, the right program can change the answer materially. That is a conversation, not a calculator.
Published 2025 principal-residence millage for each city and township, cross-checked against the Michigan Department of Treasury's county averages. Rates change annually and vary by school district within a township, so treat it as close rather than exact. Your assessor is the authority.
