If you’re waiting to buy a house in Lafayette CA because you think prices may lower, consider taking a closer look at the all-in-cost of buying your dream home today. You might be surprised at how much more home you can buy for your money right now because of the current mortgage rate environment.

At the end of the day, what’s important to your family’s home budget is not the sticker price on your house but how much you have to pay every month because you bought it.

Price is a critical factor, of course. So are other carrying costs. But there’s another huge third factor in the mix: mortgage rates.

Many people decide how much they can afford to pay for a home based on what they think they want to spend monthly, and walking the math back from there, making mortgage rate assumptions.

If you’ve already done that calculation, take a closer look at the impact even a modest change in the current historically low interest rates will have on the price of home you can afford. This excellent article by Pacific Union International walks through the math of how to do just that.