How to Tell If You Can Afford a House in Florida

The 28/36 Rule Lenders Use to Decide What You Can Afford

Every lender runs the same math first: your debt-to-income ratio, or DTI. Add up every monthly debt payment. Student loans, auto loans, credit card minimums, personal loans, court-ordered support. Divide that total by your gross monthly income, meaning income before taxes. Multiply by 100. That's your DTI.

Most lenders use the 28/36 rule as the guardrail. Housing costs alone, meaning principal, interest, taxes, insurance, and HOA dues, stay under 28% of gross monthly income. All debt combined, housing payment included, stays under 36%. Earn $6,400 a month and the caps land at $1,792 for housing and $2,304 for total debt.

The ceiling moves with the loan type. Conventional loans backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac typically allow DTI up to 36%–45%, sometimes 50% with strong compensating factors like a large down payment or high credit score. FHA loans cap DTI around 43%, with flexibility to 50%. VA loans use a 41% guideline with no hard cap. USDA loans run a similar 41% benchmark. Know which loan type you're targeting, because that number changes how much room you actually have.

How Much Your Down Payment Changes Your Real Number

Your down payment doesn't just change what you owe upfront. It reshapes your entire monthly budget. Take a $350,000 home at 6.5% interest over 30 years. Put 3% down ($10,500) and you're financing $339,500: a principal-and-interest payment around $2,146 a month, plus private mortgage insurance (PMI) because your equity starts below 20%. Put 20% down ($70,000) instead and the loan drops to $280,000, the payment drops to near $1,770, and PMI disappears entirely.

PMI runs 0.5% to 1.5% of the loan amount a year, roughly $131 to $394 a month depending on loan size and credit score, until your balance crosses the 20% equity line. On a $339,500 loan, that's close to $200 a month for insurance you wouldn't owe with a bigger down payment. Stay inside a 28% housing-cost ceiling and the gap between 5% down and 20% down can be the gap between qualifying for the home and coming up several hundred dollars short every month.

The Florida-Specific Costs That Change the Math

Two costs hit Florida affordability math harder than almost anywhere else: property insurance, and how property tax treats owner-occupants versus everyone else. Nationally, homeowners insurance averages roughly $2,377 a year, about $198 a month, per the Insurance Information Institute. Florida homeowners routinely pay well above that number because of hurricane and flood exposure. Run a Florida affordability calculation on the national average and you're already wrong. Use a local estimate instead.

Property tax works differently too, and only for owner-occupants. For 2026, a Florida homeowner who qualifies for the homestead exemption shields $25,000 of assessed value from all property taxes, plus an inflation-adjusted $26,411 from non-school taxes on value above $50,000: $51,411 in total exempted value. The state's Save Our Homes cap also limits how fast assessed value can grow each year for an existing homestead, capped at 2.7% for 2026. None of it applies on day one. A buyer has to close, move in, and file for the exemption by the March 1 deadline before any of this kicks in, so a new buyer's first-year tax bill runs on the full, non-homesteaded assessment.

Then layer in the rest: a maintenance reserve of roughly 1% of the home's purchase price a year, HOA dues of $100 to $700-plus a month in many planned communities, and closing costs of 2% to 5% of the purchase price paid at the table. On a $350,000 home, that maintenance reserve alone runs close to $292 a month before a single repair happens.

Where Cash Flow Deals Fits Into This Math

Here's the real question most affordability math skips: not what a bank will approve, but how much cash your current home actually puts in your hands, and when. Sell a house you already own to fund your next purchase, and the down payment size, the closing-cost line, and the timeline all trace back to one number: your net proceeds from that sale.

A traditional listing leaves that number uncertain until an accepted offer clears inspection, appraisal, and closing, often 60 to 90 days out, with buyer-requested repairs or credits able to shrink the final proceeds after the fact. Cash Flow Deals runs a different path: a net price set before repairs are scoped, so the number funding your next affordability calculation is known well before closing day instead of getting negotiated down after the fact.

Florida's homestead exemption and Save Our Homes protections only kick in once someone owns and occupies their next property as a permanent residence. They don't offset what it costs to get a current home sold, and they don't speed up a traditional closing timeline. A seller's net proceeds depend on timeline, repair costs, and fees paid at the table. Full stop.

Cash Flow Deals is a Florida real estate investor that locks in a net price for a seller's house before repairs are scoped, using a novation-based, flat-fee process arranged through its licensed FL brokerage partner, Silver Door Realty — not a traditional listing, and not a brokerage itself.

Cash Flow Deals turns that net-proceeds number into a firm number a seller can actually plan an affordability calculation around, in three steps:

1. Cash Flow Deals reviews the property and the current mortgage payoff, then sets a net price before any repairs get scoped or negotiated.

2. The seller reviews and signs a single novation-based contract connecting the sale to a real buyer already lined up. No separate buyer search. No re-listing.

3. Funds land in the seller's account within 24 hours of closing, turning a moving target into a firm number for the next affordability calculation.