If you have an adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) or have thought about getting one, you may wonder how your loan balance is amortized. Designing an amortization schedule is an easy way to see how a mortgage payment is applied to paying down the balance over time. Read More
The biggest purchase you are likely to make in your life is your home. In fact, your home purchase is so large that you will probably need to borrow in order to make it happen. Read More
Your mortgage rate is a big deal. Since a mortgage is such a large loan, and since the term spans decades, a 1% difference in your mortgage rate can mean a savings of tens of thousands of dollars over time. Getting the best mortgage rate when you buy a home is a must if you want to maximize your finances. Read More
Snagging the lowest mortgage rate possible can mean saving thousands of dollars over the life of your loan. For example, if you locked in a 4.0% mortgage interest rate rather than a 5.5% rate for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage loan of $200,000, you could save more than $65,000 over 30 years. Read More
Once thought of as the agile, exuberant cheerleader of home loans, the adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) accounted for as many as one in four mortgages in 2006. A few years later, when ARMs became branded one of the risky, greed-filled indulgences of the financial crisis, their number fell dramatically. Yet ARMs have seen a recent uptick in popularity, but with a much clearer view of what they really are and who can benefit from their flexibility. Read More
