Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Pre-Paying Mortgage Principal

Consider prepaying your mortgage principal. The faster you repay the principal, the less of each payment is interest.

Interest is "rent" being paid on the money you are being loaned. When you buy a house, you aren't renting space any more.....but, you are renting the money.

The first time I saw the total amount paid over the life of the mortgage figures on a Truth-in-Lending form I almost choked. It was back in the Bad Old Days when interest under 12% was considered favorable lending terms. I assumed a VA loan one time that had 16% interest. At the time, I was thrilled to get it. Thrilled. And, I made lots of money off that deal, too!

Play with the following chart and see how $50, $75, $100 per month impacts the total cost of your loan. http://www.vlender.com/cgi-bin/calc/prepay.cgi

People tell me that they don't want to prepay the mortgage because they aren't going to be in the house that long. My response to that is to ask if they have access to a place to put the money that will pay them as much as the interest rate on the mortgage "pays" them. View the interest being paid as a kind of reverse of a savings account.

People ask if they should get a shorter-term mortgage. I suggest that people get a 30 year mortgage and then treat it as if it were a 15 year mortgage. You don't have to make the higher payment if you aren't able to.

For a pro-and-con discussion of pre-payment , see http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/04/realestate/your-home-debate-over-prepaying-on-mortgage.html

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