A mortgage calculator is a powerful tool that allows users to estimate their mortgage payments based on various factors such as loan amount, interest rate, loan term, and additional costs like property taxes and insurance. It helps potential homebuyers or individuals looking to refinance to understand the financial implications of taking on a mortgage.
When integrated into a WordPress website, a mortgage calculator provides visitors with a convenient way to calculate their mortgage payments without leaving the site. It enhances user experience and helps them make informed decisions about their financial commitments.
With a mortgage calculator in WordPress, users can input specific details related to their mortgage, and the calculator instantly provides them with an estimate of their monthly payments, total interest paid over the loan term, and even an amortization schedule. These calculations are based on the information entered by the user, such as loan amount, interest rate, loan term, down payment, property taxes, and insurance.
In this article, we will see how you can build a nice mortgage calculator on your website with no programming skills.
Content Outline
- Importance of a Plugin for Creating a Mortgage Calculator
- Adding Mortgage Calculator on your website
- Elements Breakdown in Mortgage Calculator
- Conclusion
Importance of a Plugin for Creating a Mortgage Calculator
Using a plugin for creating a mortgage calculator in WordPress offers numerous benefits and advantages. Let’s explore the importance of utilizing a plugin for this purpose:
- Ease of Implementation: Plugins are pre-built software modules specifically designed to add functionality to a WordPress website without the need for extensive coding knowledge. By using a mortgage calculator plugin, you can easily integrate a fully functional mortgage calculator into your website without having to build it from scratch. This saves significant time and effort in development.
- Customization Options: Mortgage calculator plugins often come with a range of customization options, allowing you to tailor the calculator’s appearance and functionality to match your website’s design and branding. You can typically customize colors, fonts, styles, and layout to ensure a seamless integration with your overall website aesthetic. This level of customization helps maintain a consistent user experience and reinforces your brand identity.
- Accuracy and Reliability: Mortgage calculator plugins are built by developers who specialize in creating these tools. They ensure accuracy and reliability in the calculations performed by the mortgage calculator. The calculations consider industry-standard formulas, ensuring that users receive accurate estimates of their mortgage payments and related financial details. This accuracy is crucial for users who rely on the mortgage calculator to make informed decisions about their home financing.
- Regular Updates and Support: Plugins, including mortgage calculator plugins, are often supported by their developers or the WordPress community. This means that you can benefit from regular updates to ensure compatibility with the latest versions of WordPress and any security enhancements. Additionally, many plugins offer support forums or documentation where you can find answers to common questions or receive assistance if you encounter any issues.
- Enhanced User Experience: A mortgage calculator plugin improves the overall user experience on your website. Visitors can conveniently access the calculator and input their mortgage details without leaving your site. This seamless integration keeps users engaged and encourages them to explore more of your website’s content. It also saves them the hassle of navigating to external mortgage calculator websites, providing a cohesive experience that keeps them on your site longer.
- Scalability and Flexibility: As your website grows and evolves, you may want to expand the functionality of your mortgage calculator or add additional features. With a plugin, you have the flexibility to update, customize, or add new functionalities without significant development work. This scalability ensures that your mortgage calculator can adapt to your changing needs and stay relevant as your website and business expand.
Adding Mortgage Calculator on your website
Installing and activating a mortgage calculator plugin is a straightforward process that allows you to quickly add this essential functionality to your WordPress website. We will use Cost Calculator WordPress plugin because it has ready-made templates and customization options.
First, you need to install Cost Calculator from WordPress.org or directly in the Plugins section.
Right after activation, you can navigate to the Templates menu and search for Mortgage Calculator.
There are two types of mortgage calculators, which we are looking for: simple and advanced. The only difference between them is the number of options included on the calculator panel.
Both templates are available in the Pro version of the plugin. The common pricing of Cost Calculator is way too cheaper than in the other similar plugins, so it’s worth trying it.
If you wish you can preliminary explore how this mortgage calculator works on the website by playing with the following embedded demo.
Elements Breakdown in Mortgage Calculator
After installation, activation, and selection of the Mortgage calculator template, you will be presented with a dashboard featuring numerous custom elements on the left sidebar and pre-applied elements in the middle of the canvas.
Let’s go through them in order. The first one is the Home Price field. This field is of the Quantity type. In the options, you can set the currency symbol. You can make the field mandatory to fill out and also display the price in the Total cost.
The next element in line is the Down payment, implemented as a Range Slider format. It has a separate tab where you can specify:
- Minimum & Maximum Range Value
- Range Step & Range Unit
- Range Default Value & Unit Symbol.
For mortgages, we also need the loan term. It is best to make this in a Dropdown form. In our example, the options are 10, 15, 20, and 30 years.
The next important point is to allow the visitor to choose the interest rate. It can be placed in any element that supports selection options. However, it is much more convenient to represent it as a range slider as well.
Next, there are a series of options to help select the Credit score, Property Tax per month, Insurance rate, Private mortgage insurance (PMI), and Homeowner’s association (HOA). All of them are implemented as dropdowns and quantity fields in this template. However, you are free to customize them into a different form that suits your needs better.
Currently, all the necessary elements have been set up, and the skeleton of the mortgage calculator has been built as pre-made. However, without a Formula, it would not function or compute anything. In Cost Calculator, a separate Formula element is responsible for the calculations.
The process of building the logic is simple and intuitive, requiring only basic mathematical knowledge in most cases.
All the elements placed on the canvas have their own IDs. You can select them and perform computational operations using operators.
The following operators are available in the Formula element of the Cost Calculator:
- Addition
- Subtraction
- Multiplication
- Division
- Modulus
- Rounding
- Exponentiation
- Square root
- Ceiling rounding
- Floor rounding
- Parentheses
You can create as many formulas as you need in a single mortgage calculator, and each formula can have its own calculation logic based on the intended element. In our case, the first formula in the template is designed to calculate the selected interest rate in the mortgage calculator per month. For this calculation, the ID of the element (which is 3 in this template) is divided by 1200.
And this is how the logic is created for each individual formula corresponding to the respective element.
The mortgage calculator can be previewed directly in the editor, both on desktop view
and mobile view.
If you want to change the background colors, fonts, or adjust the size of blocks and texts, you can do so in the separate Appearance tab.
Finally, the mortgage calculator can be manually inserted using a shortcode on any page, or you can utilize the available widget in the Elementor page builder.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the Mortgage calculator template offers a comprehensive and user-friendly solution for accurately estimating mortgage costs. With a range of customizable elements such as Home Price, Down payment, Loan term, and Interest rate, users can effortlessly input their financial details and receive accurate calculations.
Additionally, the ability to preview the calculator in real-time, customize its appearance, and easily embed it into webpages through shortcodes or the Elementor page builder provides convenience and flexibility.
Whether you are a financial institution, a real estate professional, or an individual looking to assess mortgage costs, the Mortgage calculator template in Cost Calculator with its intuitive interface and powerful features.