Comments on: The Great Debate: 30-Year Mortgage vs. 15-Year Mortgage

By: mike

mike — Sun, 22 May 2011 19:14:29 +0000

15 year – no doubt. I had a 30 year mortgage on my first property. Great payments. Only problem? When I went to sell it I had no equity because I had poured so much into interest.
My current condo has a 15 year mortgage.
Going into the buying process, I committed myself to that. My budget was based on a 15 year mortgage, not 30 and let’s see if we want 15, I knew 15 all along.
The result?
I bought a house I can AFFORD. And now, I’m blogging about how to become mortgage free by age 30.
Can you imagine the opportunities you’d have with no mortgage?
Get trapped in a 30 year mortgage and you will find ways to spend the money you could be saving.
Just my .02 everyone…

By: 15 Year vs. 30 Year: Which Mortgage Term is Best For You? | Credit Karma Blog

Thu, 10 Mar 2011 20:21:17 +0000

[...] you’re trying to decide between a 15 year and 30 year fixed mortgage, there are many things to consider. Let’s take a look at the differences between the two types of [...]

By: Roshawn @ Watson Inc

Roshawn @ Watson Inc — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 07:00:48 +0000

I have a 30-year loan that I pay as a 15 year. I guess I too have the best of both worlds: interest savings and cash flow flexibility. Thanks for an interesting post.

By: matt

matt — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 16:42:17 +0000

MSG,
If you double your payment on a 30 year loan, it won’t be payed off in 15 years. It will take about 6 years.

By: MSG

MSG — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 17:46:24 +0000

I always go for 30-year mortgage. If you want, you can double up and pay off in 15 years, but it’s your call, not the banks. Secondly, the interest allows other tax write-offs, so the effective interest is lowered. And it’s cheap money – easy to make more than the effective 4 to 5 % interest rate in many investments.

By: Randy

Randy — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 14:57:33 +0000

One thing that helped me decide on the 30 yr is that I know I had plans to invest more in upgrades to the house and property, so, the extra cash was useful. In the end, I’ll probably break even by getting a higher price if/when I sell, and, live in a nicer house than I bought.

By: Audrey

Audrey — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 21:04:43 +0000

My take on the question is neither the 15 year or the 30 year repayment mortgage would be right for me. This is because my mortgages are all Buy to Let loans. The tenants pay rent which covers all the interest payments to the bank plus I get paid a cashflow on top. I actually EARN MONEY from ‘my’ houses and I never even own them! With time their capital value increases. Even in the credit crunch their capital value is worth more than the loans on them. Eventually if I need to realise the cash I will sell them, pay back the loans and have a good pot of money to retire on after taxes have been paid. The money I invested to purchase them is minimal and is creating wealth over time. I can take equity out to buy another one should capital values increase enough to do so. To me that is a no brainer.

By: Howard

Howard — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 20:30:19 +0000

FINANCIALLY, no question a 15 year is better as long as you can make the payments. The benefit of the 30 year is you can afford more home & arguably a “better” lifestyle.

The other benefit of the 15 year that I believe was missed above is the 2nd 15 years where you would have been putting toward your mortgage you can now invest/save 100%.

By: David McCoy

David McCoy — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 05:05:01 +0000

As stated before a 30 year is much better and if one will make an extra payment now and then you will be surprised at how fast you will be able to pay off the debt. The banks are counting on you not doing that because most everyone finds if difficult to disipline themselves and they make the money.

By: ira kellman

ira kellman — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 01:27:43 +0000

The spread between a 15 and 30 isn’t as big as it looks because the 30 carries a much higher percentage of tax deductility