50 Year Mortgage
Tuesday, August 19th, 2008
The 50 year mortgage provides another alternative to interest only mortgage, and adjustable rate mortgage. During the high house prices time, the cash-strapped home buyers opt for interest only mortgage, or adjustable rate mortgage. Naturally, the mortgage payment is lower like the interest only mortgage, or adjustable rate mortgage.
In interest only mortgage, the home owner only pays the interest. The principal stays the same thru out the life of the mortgage. In adjustable rate mortgage, the home owner pays same mortgage payment on a regular basis. Some portion of adjustable rate mortgage payment goes to pay out the principal. In some instances, adjustable rate mortgage payment does not cover payment on principal. This is more commonly known as negative amortization. This happens when the interest rate goes up.
The home owners still gains home equity. This is the main advantage of 50 year mortgage over the interest only mortgage and adjustable rate mortgage. However, the home owner gains more home equity faster with shorter term mortgage. Not to mention, the home owner pays more interest at the maturity of the mortgage.
Mortgage lenders actually prefer a shorter mortgage like 15 year mortgage. Generally, the longer term mortgage has more chance that the home owner will be in financial trouble. Fifty percent of the first-time home buyers are on 30 years old or older. The mortgage matures around at the age of 80 years old. That is long after the normal retirement age.
50 year mortgage is riskier type of mortgage to mortgage lenders. So, the mortgage lenders would usually charge a higher interest rate. Even though the mortgage lenders charges higher interest rate, the mortgage payments are actually lower than shorter term mortgage.
The home buyers can opt to buy higher priced home with 50 year mortgage. Or, the home buyers can save or invest the money from savings of the lower mortgage payments. This may be a better idea for unstable house prices when there is a chance for homes to depreciate.Source: mortgage calculators
The borrower can also switch from fixed mortgage rate to adjustable mortgage rate, or vice versa. Using the fixed mortgage rate, the borrower enjoys the stability of the same mortgage payment on each pay period. For example, the interest rate is low more than usual. To take advantage, the borrower refinances the mortgage with a low interest rate, and locks the mortgage with long mortgage term. The borrower pays less mortgage payment even though the interest rate goes up over the life of mortgage term.
Instead those mortgage brokers are usually not large to about a dozen products, usually protect varied interest rates, loan - to - assessment ratios, and fees. Apart from the variances in these factors, the products are mostly the same.