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 starts with the same core math: your debt-to-income ratio, or DTI. Add up your total monthly debt payments — student loans, auto loans, credit card minimums, personal loans, and any court-ordered support — and divide that total by your gross monthly income (income before taxes), then multiply by 100. That percentage is your DTI.

Most lenders apply what's known as the 28/36 rule as a guardrail. No more than 28% of your gross monthly income should go toward housing costs alone (principal, interest, taxes, insurance, and any HOA dues). No more than 36% of your gross monthly income should go toward all debt combined, including that housing payment. A household earning $6,400 a month, for example, would be capped around $1,792 for housing and $2,304 for total debt under this rule.

The exact ceiling shifts by loan type. Conventional loans backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac typically allow DTI up to 36%–45%, and sometimes as high as 50% with strong compensating factors like a large down payment or high credit score. FHA loans generally cap DTI around 43%, with some flexibility to 50%. VA loans use a 41% guideline without a hard cap, and USDA loans follow a similar 41% benchmark. Knowing which loan type you're targeting changes how much room you actually have to work with.

How Much Your Down Payment Changes Your Real Number

Your down payment size doesn't just change what you owe upfront — it reshapes your entire monthly budget. On a $350,000 home at a 6.5% interest rate over 30 years, a 3% down payment ($10,500) leaves a loan of $339,500 with a monthly principal-and-interest payment around $2,146, plus private mortgage insurance (PMI) because equity starts below 20%. Push that down payment to 20% ($70,000) instead, and the loan drops to $280,000 with a monthly payment near $1,770 — and PMI disappears entirely.

PMI itself typically runs 0.5% to 1.5% of the loan amount annually, or roughly $131 to $394 a month depending on loan size and credit score, until the loan balance crosses the 20% equity threshold. That's real money: on a $339,500 loan, PMI alone can add close to $200 to a monthly payment that otherwise wouldn't exist. For a buyer trying to stay inside a 28% housing-cost ceiling, the difference between a 5% down payment and a 20% down payment can be the difference between qualifying for a home and falling several hundred dollars short every month.

The Florida-Specific Costs That Change the Math

Two costs move the affordability number more in Florida than in most of the country: property insurance and how property tax treats owner-occupants versus everyone else. Nationally, homeowners insurance averages roughly $2,377 a year, or about $198 a month, per data the industry tracks through the Insurance Information Institute. Florida homeowners routinely pay well above that national figure because of hurricane and flood exposure, which means the insurance line in a Florida affordability calculation needs its own local estimate, not the national average.

Property tax also works differently for owner-occupants than for buyers who won't live in the home full-time. 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. Beyond that, the state's Save Our Homes cap limits how fast assessed value can grow each year for an existing homestead, capped at 2.7% for 2026. None of that protection applies until a buyer has closed, moved in, and filed for the exemption by the March 1 deadline, so a new buyer's first-year tax bill is calculated on the full, non-homesteaded assessment.

Layer in the rest of it: a maintenance reserve of roughly 1% of the home's purchase price per 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 ever happens.

Where Cash Flow Deals Fits Into This Math

For a lot of people figuring out what they can actually afford, the real question isn't just what a bank will approve — it's how much cash their current home actually puts in their hands, and when. If you're selling a house you already own to fund your next purchase, 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 offers 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 being negotiated down after the fact.

Florida's homestead exemption and Save Our Homes protections only apply 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 something 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 are scoped or negotiated.

2. The seller reviews and signs a single novation-based contract that connects the sale to a real buyer already lined up, with no separate buyer search and 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.