For many home buyers, the only real decision they have to make is whether to have a 15 or 30 year fixed mortgage rate? Buying a home later in life means that many people want to have the mortgage paid off early. There are always things to take into account before signing documents. Over the period of the loan, it’s important to remember to make sure the interest rate remains the same.
It seems that some lenders are happy to offer deals that appear too good to be true and they usually are. A 15 year fixed rate mortgage means the interest rate remains stable for the life of the loan. If you are someone that wants a loan with a regular fixed repayment and no additional charges then this is the main benefit with this type of agreement. Both my wife and I decided to research fixed rate mortgages when we started looking at homes for sale.
Even though it was important for us to pay off our loan at the earliest possible opportunity, we didn’t want high, unrealistic monthly payments which we would have trouble maintaining. It became obvious that we had to look at fixed rate mortgages over a longer period and not just 15 year plans. The problem was that we weren’t very happy about having a mortgage close to when we both retired so it was our hope a 15 year fixed mortgage rate would still be available to us. It wasn’t easy for us because of the stress to pay the house off early.
Taking everything into account we finally went for the easier 30 year mortgage plan instead. There were many things that lead us into making this choice. The main reason was that I found out my wife was pregnant. My wife decided she wanted to raise our child at home so I couldn’t be certain of her monthly financial commitment to our household expenses. Our monthly payment would have been too high if we had committed ourselves to the 15 year fixed mortgage plan. We knew that it just wasn’t an option and the risk was too great. A thirty year loan brought the monthly payments down to a reasonable level.
Making a few additional lump sum payments during the year helps bring down the amount owed. It is possible to take years off your loan if you can make a few extra payments during each year. Although this isn’t easy to achieve, in the long term it is well worth it.
Our first choice would have been to go for the short term 15 year fixed rate mortgage solution but this did not help with our more immediate situation. In retrospect, everything worked out ok for us by going down this road.
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