Are you unhappy with your mortgage? There are more and more people that are finding that their mortgage is not what they expected. When we purchase a home or refinance our mortgage we give ourselves a mental picture of the mortgage being easier to pay down as the years go by. We think that with a raise in a couple of years we can make more money and pay our mortgage down quicker.
However, most people never get to a point where they are comfortable enough to pay down their mortgage faster.
We forget to calculate the cost of living that rises year after year and the raise we get usually ends up covering normal expenses instead of paying down our mortgage.
If you have a variable rate mortgage, then there is a good chance that your monthly payment will go up, which, again will make is harder to pay down your mortgage when you are making more money.
There is even something called a negative amortization loan or a Neg Am, that will have you paying less than the interest only payment on your mortgage every month. This will actually cause your principal balance to grow each month.
So how do you pay down your mortgage faster….
The first and easiest solution is to pay more money each month towards your principal. This will save you interest off the back end of the loan and will pay off your balance quicker.
Now you just have to figure out where that extra money will be coming from. You will have to figure out how much extra you can send in each month and how many months in a row you can send in to keep pace with yourself. If you can even come up with an extra $20 each month to pay towards your mortgage you will be able to pay it off faster than you could imagine.
The second way to pay off your mortgage faster is to make a 13th payment each year. This could come from a bonus at work, a tax return check, or from a month when you get 3 paychecks instead of just 2. Another way to achieve a 13th payment each year is to make bi-weekly payments. This will give you 26 half payments, which equals 13 whole payments.
Paying a 13th payment each year can actually save you 5-7 years on a 30 year mortgage, which can save you thousands of dollars in interest of the back end of your loan. It is amazing that more people are not already taking advantage of this method, but I guess there are more important things than paying off your mortgage.
The last thing you can do is refinance for a lower rate and have your mortgage guy or gal give you the payment amount that you would have to pay each month to pay off your mortgage faster. For example, if you refinance for a 30 year mortgage you can find out what the payment would be for a 20 year and a 15 year mortgage. Then, try to make the 15 year payment each month, but if you slip up and need a little extra cash you can make the 20 year payment one or two months instead.
However you go about paying down your mortgage faster does not matter as long as you stay disciplined and you just go ahead and do it already.