How to Use a Mortgage Payment Calculator?
There is numerous mortgage payment calculator out there. Some may be specific while others are more generic! Most accurate mortgage payment calculator is the one, which gives you results based on the lender’s point of view.
The intention to use a mortgage payment calculator is to anticipate your mortgage payments when you are refinancing or buying a new house. You might feel the need to do to see if your payments fit your monthly expenses. Let us understand a few tips, on how to use a Mortgage Payment Calculator to its best.
Finding the right Mortgage Calculator
It is imperative to know if you have the right mortgage calculator based on what you are using one for. Are you looking for Rate and Term Refinance (RTRF), a Cash-out Refinance (CORF) or a new Property Purchase, the type of calculator you might want to use for payment calculation would vary
For example, if you are looking to buy a new home, the mortgage calculator may also include mortgage insurance if you are putting down lower than twenty percent as a down payment.
Information Required for Calculation
Most of the people using the calculator consider the payments which include Principal and interest. Well, that is what most of the mortgage payment calculators show when you input your numbers. The Principal and interest are not the only factors included in your payment.
There are your Property Taxes and Home Owner’s Insurance, which are part of your monthly mortgage payments too. The reason why most of the calculators show only Principal and interest is because the taxes and insurance vary from state to state and location to location. You might want to look at your monthly payments from a lender’s point of view.
A lender would calculate your monthly mortgage payment, including all the possible factors like Principal, Interest, Property Taxes, Home Owner’s Insurance, and in some cases, Mortgage Insurance, and HOA. It could always be deceiving when you are looking at numbers with only Principal and interest.
How to Get the Required Information
Interest Rate: You can get the interest rate from your bank or google the current market mortgage rate to have an idea of what the current mortgage rates are locked at. It ultimately depends on your credit score and other factors for a lender to determine the best interest rate for you.
Lenders usually quote interest rates a little higher than the current rate considering the worst-case scenario. So when you get the current market interest rate, we suggest to take it 0.2% to 0.4% higher than the current interest rate.
Loan Amount: If you are planning to refinance, you can get the current loan balance from your existing lender. If you are also looking to tap into your equity for some extra cash, then add the amount you need, to your existing loan balance. This would give you the new loan amount that you need to put into the mortgage payment calculator.
If you are planning to buy a new home, then you might need to subtract the down payment that you are making from the sales price which would give you the loan amount.
Property Taxes: It could be possible that some of us are not sure about property taxes in the area. If you are refinancing, you might get that information from your current lender who holds your mortgage, or you can refer your monthly mortgage statement.
If you are buying a new home, you can get in touch with a trusted real estate advisor, or you can google the current property taxes in your city.
Home Owner’s Insurance: Home owner’s insurance is subjective to the type of coverage that you carry out and whether your house would have earthquake insurance, flood insurance or any other particular policies attached to your insurance.
You might want to speak to your insurance agent to figure out the level of coverage that is right for you and has the best insurance for your home. If you are refinancing, you can get that information from your current mortgage lender or your monthly mortgage statement.
Conclusion
Once you have all the information that you have collected from various sources, you should be in a position to enter it into a mortgage payment calculator and get an estimate of your monthly mortgage payments from a lender’s point of view. Once you get the estimate, you can now decide how to manage your expenses around the monthly mortgage payments.
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