Pay off mortgage faster

[Doublebase]

I have a 30 year fixed mortgage. I want to pay it off faster. I was told by some people that paying one extra payment towards principal a year will knock it down to 22 yrs. Does anyone have a link to a table that explains how many payments will do what?

 

[tucker01]

Paying weekly helps pay more to the principal annually. Plus I put an additional 30$ a week in. Although it may not look like much, it makes a huge difference.

 

[Doublebase]

My buddy wants me to get involved in this program here on this website. Basically he told me that you open a home equity line of credit and you use that as your checking account. Pay off bills, mortgage, credit cards etc... It costs 3500$ to start up and you pay 50-100 more on your mortgage each month. What do you guys think of this? Am I paying 3500 dollars for a software program? Please take a look at the website before you answer. I have a meeting my buddies supervisor tomorrow to talk about the program face to face.
United First Financial > Home

 

[Doublebase]

Give me some questions to ask him.

 

[Doublebase]

Come on Iain.

 

[PreMier]

I will help you with this, send me a PM. I cant do it right this second but will give you info in just a bit.

 

[NeilPearson]

I read their website. Essentially you open a line of credit on your house and use that for all your expenses... then it takes all the money you make and applies it directly towards your mortgage. This keeps your interest payments as low as possible....

You don't need software to do that. If that is what you want to do, just get a line of credit and use it for everything. Then when you get paid, just apply your entire check to either your mortgage or your line of credit whichever one has a higher interest rate. You get the same result, except it doesn't cost you anything.

It seems kind of silly to me though. Your line of credit will probably have a higher interest rate than your first mortgage (if not, it is time to refinance). So basically, your paycheck will go to paying off your line of credit and not towards your first mortgage unless your line of credit balance is already zero... in which case you might as well just use your extra cash to pay down your first mortgage anyway.

The whole thing seems silly. Personally, I would just use a mortgage calculator like this:

Mortgage Calculator -- Bankrate.com

Then you can see how your extra payments will make a difference.

 

[GSXR750]

I'm a licensed broker. Pm me if you need some help with amortization.