Rent Affordability
Tells you what rent your income can comfortably support, before you fall in love with an apartment that can't.
Rent Affordability works out US take-home pay, so it only appears for accounts in the United States.
Inputs
Annual Income: your gross yearly income, before tax.
Country: fixed to the United States.
State: preselected from your profile when it can be.
Filing status: your federal filing status.
State and filing status are here because affordability depends on take-home pay, not gross. The same salary supports meaningfully different rents in different states.
What it gives you
Three rent levels, each a share of your monthly take-home pay:
- ›Safe range, 20% of take-home. Rent that leaves plenty of room for everything else.
- ›Sweet spot, 30%. What most people can carry comfortably.
- ›Pushing it, 35%. Possible, but it squeezes savings and any debt payments.
The result leads with the Sweet spot, alongside your Take-home per month and your annual Income. The three levels are drawn as bars so you can see the gap between them.
Read comfortably carefully. This isn't the maximum a landlord would approve you for. Landlords approve people for rents that quietly wreck their finances all the time. These are levels that leave room for everything else.
Add To Budget
Each level has its own add button. Tap the one you plan to live with and it goes into your Builder's housing section as monthly rent, confirming with, for example, Safe range rent added to budget. and an Open shortcut to the Builder.
Run this before you look
The order matters more than people think. Look at listings first and you'll anchor on a number, then work backwards to justify it. Run this first and you have a ceiling before your judgment gets involved.
The same applies to what a letting agent tells you you're approved for. That figure is about their risk, not your life.
The part it can't see
Affordability rules of thumb are blunt instruments. They don't know:
- ›Your debts. Someone with $900/month in student loans and someone with none can have identical salaries and completely different rent capacity. If you carry debt payments, aim lower.
- ›Your other commitments, such as childcare, medical costs, or family support.
- ›What's included. Rent with utilities and parking included is not comparable to rent without.
- ›Your goals. Renting at your maximum means never saving a deposit.
This is the calculator's real limitation, and it's why the next step isn't optional.
Test it against your actual plan
Add the level you're considering and rebuild in the Budget Builder.
Your budget knows what the calculator doesn't: your debts, your bills, your savings goals. If a rent that looks affordable here pushes your debt-free date out by two years, the plan will show you that in a way a percentage rule never could.
Do this before signing. A lease is a year-long commitment, and it's usually the single largest line in a budget.
Beyond the rent itself
Budget for the full cost of the place, not the headline figure:
- ›Utilities, if not included
- ›Renters insurance
- ›Parking, storage, pet rent
- ›Commuting costs, since a cheaper place further out isn't always cheaper
- ›Moving costs and deposits up front
Add the recurring ones to Expenses.
If you're buying instead
See the Mortgage Calculator.