For many couples, whether first time buyers or not, the prime consideration when looking at a fixed rate mortgage is the monthly installmet cost. These days many of us are waiting until later in life to purchase a home but still wish to have the house paid back as soon as possible. However, there are many factors to consider before signing any papers.
An important consideration to recall is that you need to make sure that the interest rate doesn’t change during the course of the mortgage. Of course, many lenders seem to offer deals that are too good to be true. Although, loans based on a long run fixed rate mortgage maintain the same amount of interest throughout their life. If you are someone that wants a mortgage with a regular fixed monthly mortgage payment with no hidden extra charges then this is the main benefit with this type of arrangement. Both my wife and I decided to explore fixed rate mortgages when we started looking at homes for sale. Our aim was to pay of the mortgage as soon as we could without getting into fiscal trouble because of high monthly installments.
It became obvious that we had to look at fixed rate mortgages over a longer period and not just 15 year fixed mortgage rate schemes. The problem was that we weren’t very happy about having a mortgage still running close to when we both retired and hoped that a fifteen year fixed mortgage rate would still be accessible to us. There was obviously very good reasons to finish paying the loan off early if at all possible. Discovering my wife was pregnant was the clincher, although this wasn’t the only reason we reached this decision. Because my wife desired to be at home for our child, her financial income would be uncertain and unreliable. Alas, a higher monthly payment is the downside of loans on a 15 year fixed mortgage rate plan. All things considered, we just didn’t want to bite off more than we could chew as the cost of raising a child was an uncertain factor.
Despite the fear of having a longer term mortgage, the thirty years fixed mortgage rate did reduce the monthly installments considerably. Fortunately, we are also able make supplemental payments throughout the year to make the principal shrink faster. By making just a few of these additional installments each year we discovered that year’s could be subtracted from the mortgage term. Although this takes some discipline, it is well worth it in the long term. Under different circumstances, we would have preferred to have taken out a mortgage with a 15 year fixed mortgage rate but we had to consider our other commitments as well. Despite all our concerns, things turned out well for us ultimately and we don’t regret our decision.
