Q: I noticed your reference to our calculators, at www.emortgage.co.nz, in your piece last Saturday.
Our calculator page remains our most popular page. A large number of visitors come in, use just the calculators, and leave.
We are finding that our refinancing calculator is really popular, as itshows how much borrowers can save at a lower variable rate.
We are surprised that our term reduction calculator is not used more.
A moderate level of increased payment can really bring the mortgage term down.
Nice try at a free ad for the second week in a row! And I'm giving it to you, as you make a couple of good points.
Your refinancing calculator shows, for instance, that if you switch a $200,000 25-year loan from 7.2 to 6.8 per cent, and it costs you $800 to refinance the loan, you will pay $51 less a month.
Or you could continue to pay that $51 extra. According to your term reduction calculator, you would then save $22,000 interest over the life of the loan, and pay it off in less than 23 years.
And if you could come up with $100 more, so that you paid $151 extra a month, you would save $53,000 and pay off the loan in less than 20 years. It's all good stuff.
One quirk of all the internet calculators I've used: don't put commas in amounts like $100,000. The calculators prefer $100000.
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