If you pay $200 extra a month towards principal, you can cut your loan term by more than 8 years and reduce the interest paid by more than $44,000. Another way to pay down your mortgage in less time is to make half-monthly payments every 2 weeks, instead of 1 full monthly payment.
Options to pay off your mortgage faster include:
Pay extra each month. Bi-weekly payments instead of monthly payments. Making one additional monthly payment each year. Refinance with a shorter-term mortgage.
Making extra payments of $500/month could save you $60,798 in interest over the life of the loan. You could own your house 13 years sooner than under your current payment. These calculations are tools for learning more about the mortgage process and are for educational/estimation purposes only.
By adding $300 to your monthly payment, you'll save just over $64,000 in interest and pay off your home over 11 years sooner. Consider another example. You have a remaining balance of $350,000 on your current home on a 30-year fixed rate mortgage. You decide to increase your monthly payment by $1,000.
Reduce your loan term
Making the equivalent of two extra mortgage payments per year, for example, will knock off 9 years and 4 months from the total term of your loan. A shorter mortgage term also means that you'll own your house outright sooner.
You can't prepay, renegotiate or refinance a closed mortgage before the end of the term without a prepayment charge. But, most closed mortgages have certain prepayment privileges, such as the right to prepay 10% to 20% of the original principal amount each year, without a prepayment charge.
Ideally, you want your extra payments to go towards the principal amount. However, many lenders will apply the extra payments to any interest accrued since your last payment and then apply anything left over to the principal amount. Other times, lenders may apply extra funds to next month's payment.
How much do biweekly payments shorten a 30-year mortgage? That partly depends on the interest rate — but on a 30-year mortgage loan with a 7% interest rate, making your mortgage payments biweekly would allow you to pay off your loan seven years faster than with traditional monthly payments.
Dave Ramsey, the renowned financial guru, has long been a proponent of financial discipline and savvy money management. This can include paying off your mortgage early, but only under specific financial circumstances.
You'll pay off a 30-year mortgage in 30 years, while you'll pay off a 15-year in 15 years. No surprises there, right? Here are a few more key differences. 30-year mortgage: Because a 30-year mortgage has a longer term, your monthly payments will be lower and your interest rate on the loan will be higher.
Rather than delaying credit until the next month, the optimal day within the month to make an extra payment is the last day on which the lender will credit you for the current month.
Refinancing can save you money in multiple ways, as it allows you to convert to either a shorter or longer loan term, depending on what's best for you. So if you're 10 years into a 30-year mortgage term, you could potentially refinance to a 10-year term and shave off 10 years.
Putting extra money toward your mortgage means you may miss out on other financial opportunities that could be greater than the benefits of paying off your housing debt early. Instead, you could use those funds to try to generate higher returns.
Interest Rate And A $200K Mortgage
For example, a 30-year $200K mortgage with a 7% fixed interest rate would have a monthly payment of $1,331, while the same 30-year $200K mortgage at a fixed interest rate of 7.5% would have a monthly payment of $1,398.
As you can see, the principal balance of the mortgage decreases by more than the extra $300 paid each month. For example, if you pay an extra $300 each month for 24 months at the start of a 30-year mortgage, the extra amount by which the principal balance is reduced is greater than $7,200 (or $300 × 24).
More of your payment will go toward principal as a result. two and paying half twice a month (as long as the first one is before the due date and the second is on or before the due date), also reduces the interest due.
Making an extra mortgage payment each year could reduce the term of your loan significantly. The most budget-friendly way to do this is to pay 1/12 extra each month. For example, by paying $975 each month on a $900 mortgage payment, you'll have paid the equivalent of an extra payment by the end of the year.
Make extra house payments.
Let's crunch the numbers. We'll say you have a $240,000, 30-year mortgage with a 7% interest rate and a monthly payment of $1,597 for your principal and interest. If you made an extra payment just once every quarter, you'd pay off your house nearly 15 years early!
The 2% rule states that you should aim for a 2% lower interest rate in order to ensure that the savings generated by your new loan will offset the cost refinancing, provided you've lived in your home for two years and plan to stay for at least two more.
The additional amount will reduce the principal on your mortgage, as well as the total amount of interest you will pay, and the number of payments.
Making an additional payment each quarter results in four extra payments per year. On a $220,000, 30-year mortgage with a 4% interest rate, you would cut 11 years off your mortgage and save $65,000 in interest.
Adding an Extra Mortgage Payment of $10 Per Month
Assuming you've got a $100,000 loan amount set at 4% on a 30-year fixed mortgage, that extra $10 payment would save you $3,191.81 over the full loan term. It would also shorten your mortgage by 13 months, meaning your 30-year mortgage would be a 28-year (ish) mortgage.