Best fixed rate mortgage deals
There is always a debate when home buyers have to decide on the merits of 15 or 30 year fixed mortgage rates. Buying a home later in life means that many people want to have the mortgage paid off early. There are always things to take into account before signing documents. Probably the most important point is a guarantee of a constant interest rate for the duration of the loan.
It seems that some lenders are happy to offer deals that appear too good to be true and they usually are. For loans that have 15 year fixed mortgage rates, the same amount of interest is maintained throughout the life of the loan. For those individuals that do not like hidden surprises, this is always a benefit. My wife and I looked into the loans available with 15 year fixed mortgage rates when we were searching for a home for sale.
Even though it was important for us to pay off our loan at the earliest possible opportunity, we did not want high, unrealistic monthly payments which we would have trouble maintaining. When we considered fixed rate mortgages we also looked into even longer term loans that spanned 30 years as well. The 15 year fixed mortgage rate was the plan we really wanted because neither of us wanted to be still paying a mortgage when we close to retiring. It was not easy for us because of the stress to pay the house off early.
We thought about it long and hard and despite the pressure we decided to go with the 30 year loan plan. Reaching the decision we did was the only one that made sense.Finding out my wife was having a baby made making the choice so much easier! My wife was going to raise our child from home so her addition to the monthly income would be restricted. The downside to the 15 year fixed mortgage rate was the higher monthly repayment. We just decided we would probably get into trouble if we took this route. The monthly payments on a 30 year loan were quite a bit lower.
Making a few additional lump sum payments during the year helps bring down the amount owed. To our surprise we also discovered that we could knock years off our loan by doing this. This is well worth it in the long term but it does require some discipline. We would have much preferred to have taken out a loan with a 15 year fixed mortgage rate but we had to consider our other commitments as well. Despite all our worries, things turned out well for us and we do not regret the decision.
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