have been living in a townhouse for the last 18 yrs....been paid off and obviously worth more now.....was wondering about buying a house.....would be looking short term like 15yr mortgage etc. any good calculators you guys use? looking about 250k or so, but only financing 120-150 maybe...
thanks....

 

Go to www.nbc4.com then click on Real Estate on the left side of the page. If this works here is the link to it. http://www.nbc4.com/realestate/index.html I borrowed 128K when I refinance my house in 03 to a 15 year mortgage. I got 4.625% and my payment was 1100 a month until taxes went up. Now it's 1200. That's including escrow of course. The actual mortgage is only around 900.

 

I am trying to figure out the whole mortgage system and it really irks me off, because every bank and mortgage company out there seems to have their own little way of screwing you over. At least when you are looking at car loans you can just compare interest rates and loan origination fees and so forth, with mortgages theres too much other crap to deal with. WIsh I was wealthy so I didnt have to figure it all out .

 

Most any handheld financial calculator will find the missing variable (PRN,PMT,PCT,TIM)

Sounds like you know TIM = 180 (15 years)
and PRN = 120,000 or 150,000
PCT can be found in the newspaper

The calculator will return PMT (payment)

If you know a PMT you want to make, leave one of the other three blank and any $20 Financial calculator will answer the mail.

Plug in any three and the answer will be the forth.

As far as software, I have used 'The Bankers Secret Revealed' for nearly 20 years.

It's an old DOS program that works great except no mouse.
The bankers secret will send an amortization schedule to screen or printer
with optional biweekly payments or additional PRN paymrnts.
It has always been within two cents of the mortgage company numbers.

p.s.
15 years @ 6%

$120K = $1,012.63 per month (Principle & Interest)
$150K = $1,265.79 per month (Principle & Interest)

that took about 15 seconds

 

I like http://www.bankrate.com/brm/mortgage-calculator.asp Micorsoft Money used to have a great on in their program, but it looks like they took it out.

 

www.bankrate.com

 

Bankrate.com is a good one.

Also, rates are so low right now, you might be better off financing more of the house and investing the cash you make from the sale of your townhouse. Depending on where you buy, appreciation may make up a good bit of the interest on the house, and you shouldn't have much trouble finding investments that will pay more than 6-7% with low risk over the same timeline as a home loan. Lots of variables, but worth considering.

 

yeah, we were looking to invest about 50k hopefully....should get about 150 for the townhouse and looking at 220-250 total for new house, so about 120-150 to finance at 5.62% is what i saw for 15yr in the paper.....so what is that then a month?

jim

 

120,000 = $988.16
150,000 = $1,235.20

Jim, I think a handheld pocket Financial calculator is only about $15 nowadays.

Since you haven't found a house or narrowed down a figure yet, it would be a good idea to have one on you.
They are easy to operate.

There are four inputs
PRN = Principle (the amount you want to borrow)
PCT = Percent (the APR of the loan)
PMT = Monthly (or bi-weekly or whatever) Payment
TIM = Time (Length of the loan)

You plug in any three, it gives you the fourth

Let's say I can afford a payment of $1,000. (P&I)
Let's say the bank will give me a mortgage at 6.5%

I plug in these two

and I enter 15 for years = the handheld tells me my mortgage amount can be $114,796.41

Now I wonder what a 30 year loan will get me...
I enter 30 for years and the handheld tells me I afford a $158,210.82 mortgage.

You get numbers instantly while driving around looking at real estate without access to the internet or having a nosy real estate agent get into your business.

 

Best one I've ever seen or used.

www.jeacle.ie/mortgage

KC-10 FE out...

 

thanks for all the advise.....thats why i love a site like this....others will have ideas you never thought of before. appreciate it.
jim