After five years, the rate may have fallen to around 2.5% with the LIBOR index down to just 0.25%. Yes, it is possible to lower your mortgage rate without refinancing!
Adding Extra Each Month
Just paying an additional $100 per month towards the principal of the mortgage reduces the number of months of the payments. A 30 year mortgage (360 months) can be reduced to about 24 years (279 months) – this represents a savings of 6 years!
While your first payment is larger than with a 30-year loan, you also pay off $1,332 in just one month. After five years, your principal payment goes up to $1535 and keeps climbing. For the last five years of your loan, you will pay at least $1,784 per month in principal, increasing every month.
Why? The short answer is that it has to do with the type of loan and how the interest on your balance is calculated. For some types of loans, at the beginning of the loan term, the majority of each payment goes towards interest rather than the principal (the amount you borrowed).
Key Takeaways
Monthly payments remain the same for the life of the loan for traditional fixed-rate loans, but the portion that goes toward interest will decline while the principal portion increases.
Tip: A mortgage payment doesn't decrease over time as it is paid off, like it might with a credit card or revolving account like a HELOC. Instead, the monthly payment is pre-determined for the life of the loan using an amortization schedule, even if you chip away at it along the way.
In this scenario, an extra principal payment of $100 per month can shorten your mortgage term by nearly 5 years, saving over $25,000 in interest payments. If you're able to make $200 in extra principal payments each month, you could shorten your mortgage term by eight years and save over $43,000 in interest.
Paying off your mortgage early is a good way to free up monthly cashflow and pay less in interest. But you'll lose your mortgage interest tax deduction, and you'd probably earn more by investing instead. Before making your decision, consider how you would use the extra money each month.
Making additional principal payments will shorten the length of your mortgage term and allow you to build equity faster. Because your balance is being paid down faster, you'll have fewer total payments to make, in-turn leading to more savings.
Just paying an extra $50 per month will shave 2 years and 7 months off the loan and will save you over $12,000 in the long run. If you can up your payments by $250, the savings increase to over $40,000 while the loan term gets cut down by almost a third. The savings can be substantial.
Okay, you probably already know that every dollar you add to your mortgage payment puts a bigger dent in your principal balance. And that means if you add just one extra payment per year, you'll knock years off the term of your mortgage—not to mention interest savings!
You should aim to have everything paid off, from student loans to credit card debt, by age 45, O'Leary says. “The reason I say 45 is the turning point, or in your 40s, is because think about a career: Most careers start in early 20s and end in the mid-60s,” O'Leary says.
Throwing in an extra $500 or $1,000 every month won't necessarily help you pay off your mortgage more quickly. Unless you specify that the additional money you're paying is meant to be applied to your principal balance, the lender may use it to pay down interest for the next scheduled payment.
The most common mortgage term in the U.S. is 30 years. A 30-year mortgage gives the borrower 30 years to pay back their loan. Most people with this type of mortgage won't keep the original loan for 30 years. In fact, the typical mortgage length, or average lifespan of a mortgage, is under 10 years.
Generally, national banks will allow you to pay additional funds towards the principal balance of your loan. However, you should review your loan agreement or contact your bank to find out their specific process for doing so.
You have a decrease in your interest rate or your escrow payments. It could also be because you stopped paying for private mortgage insurance. If you have private mortgage insurance, your payments may change once you are able to and do cancel the insurance. You were charged new fees.