"Interest Only" Loan Calculator Old Version
For the new version, just click here.

"Interest only" loans are becoming increasingly popular and so it is important to understand exactly how they work.
An "interest only loan" allows a person to pay a lower monthly payment at the beginning of the loan in order to save money (or to anticipate a larger salary) so that a higher monthly payment is more affordable later in the loan.
Scroll down for an example.


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For this example, the Equity Calculator was used.
Example: A 30 year mortgage for $250,000 at 7% interest requires a monthly payment of $1,663.26.
For the "interest only" loan, using the calculator on this page we find that the monthly payment would be $1,458.33 which is about 12.3% lower. Is this savings worth it?
Let's compare the mortgage to the "interest only" loan after five years have passed.
Look at the chart below.

               Payment Total     Interest Paid     Equity
Mortgage $99,795.37 $85,124.35 $14,671.03
Int Only Loan $87,500.00 $87,500.00 $ 0.00

So, after 5 years of "interest only loan" payments, you have the "advantage" of "saving" $12,295.37 but you are left with 2 big drawbacks.
1) You have absolutely zero equity in your house. To put this in plain English, how much of your house is actually yours? Absolutely nothing.
2) While you have enjoyed the 5 years of "saving" $12,295.37 you have also lost five years that could have been used for earning equity in your home.

So now you have 2 choices.
1) Taking out a 30 year mortgage (which you could have done 5 years ago). You'll be making payments on your house for a total of 35 years the first 5 of which earned no equity and ended up costing $87,500.00.
2) If you don't want monthly payments for 35 years, you could take out a 7% 25 year mortgage and the monthly payments would be $1,766.95. That's over a hundred dollars more than the conventional 30 year mortgage.
So, you have lost 5 years and $87,500.


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