Microsoft® Office Excel 2003 Inside Out

Using the Goal Seek Command

By choosing Tools, Goal Seek, you can compute an unknown value that produces the result you want. For example, suppose you want to know the maximum 30-year mortgage you can afford if the interest rate is 6.5 percent and if you must limit your monthly payments to $2,000. To use the Goal Seek command to answer this question, first set up the problem using trial values. For example, in the mortgage problem shown in Figure 18-19, a $500,000 mortgage would require monthly payments in excess of the $2,000 target.

Figure 18-19. Use the Goal Seek command to find the maximum mortgage you can borrow if you want to keep your payments ...