There's an important difference between how much a lender might approve you to borrow and how much actually fits comfortably in your life. Lenders calculate a maximum using debt-to-income ratios — generally looking at your proposed housing payment alone (the "front-end" ratio) and your total monthly debt including that payment (the "back-end" ratio). Many conventional guidelines look for a back-end ratio at or below roughly 36–43%, though acceptable ranges vary by loan program, lender, and your overall file.
That approved maximum is a ceiling, not a target. It's calculated from your income and current debts on paper — it doesn't know about your grocery bill, your car maintenance, how often you travel, or how much you like having a cushion in your savings account. Plenty of financially comfortable homeowners intentionally buy below their maximum approval so their monthly payment leaves real room to breathe.
A useful exercise before you ever talk to a lender is building your own bottom-up budget: list your actual take-home pay, your actual recurring expenses, and what's realistically left over for housing each month. Compare that number to what a lender's formula produces. When the two numbers are far apart, that gap is useful information — it tells you whether to aim toward the lower end of what you might be approved for.
Remember, too, that the mortgage payment is only part of the monthly cost of owning a home — you'll also want to budget for property taxes, homeowners insurance, possibly mortgage insurance or HOA dues, and ongoing maintenance. The Finance and Own stages later in this Academy walk through each of those pieces in detail so nothing catches you by surprise after closing.
This is a self-diagnosis exercise, not a substitute for pre-qualification. The Homebuyer Readiness Score and Scenario Lab tools on this site can help you explore these numbers, but they're educational estimates — a licensed loan officer looking at your real income, debts, and credit is the only way to get an actual, reliable number for what you can borrow.