How To Pay Off Your Mortgage Faster
A mortgage loan is in most cases 30 years in length and they are designed to make owning a home affordable for all people. The length of the loan can reduce payment amounts but also increase the interest paid. The ability to pay the mortgage off early will save thousands in interest and allow people the freedom of true home ownership much sooner than they anticipated.
Most people do not realize how easy it is to pay a mortgage off faster than the bank states. The first rule should be to have the best possible interest rate. If your credit score is better now than when you obtained the loan refinancing might be in order. The lower the interest rate the easier to pay the loan off quicker and you also save thousands in interest payments.
The easiest way to pay the mortgage off faster is to split the payments. Instead of making a monthly payment of $1000 you should make bi-weekly payments of $500 each. This method allows you to make 2 extra mortgage payments each year without ever noticing it in your budget. The two extra payments that are made are going directly to the principle of your loan and will reduce your loan life.
There are some who pay a large lump sum to the loan at the end of the year. The regular payments are made and then a portion is paid towards the principle. The lender may have limits as to how much can be paid without being penalized so you need to find that out before paying this way. This may be an impossible method for some but for those who do it they pay 15% of the loans balance towards the principle each year and have an extremely early payoff.
To be more realistic you can use the method of paying an additional amount each month instead of annually. This method allows you to pay on the principle each month and it is much more affordable for people to do this than the other method. The amount you decide on is up to you and what you can afford. The loans lifetime will shorten the more you pay each month.
If you are looking for a way to truly reduce the size of the loan and want to see more results than just a mere five years drop off you can combine methods. If you choose the bi-weekly payments then include an additional payment with each. A small amount will show you results so you do not have to go overboard here. The larger the amount the sooner the payoff obviously but even with a modest amount you will see a ten year difference in the lifetime of the loan. If you are lucky enough to have a lender who does not penalize for over payment then you can easily reduce your loan by 15 years or more with over payments. The weeks you have more you can send more and when you don?t have much just send a few dollars over.
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