# Mortgage - stay the course or make a move



## Gimme the Green (Feb 4, 2014)

With the recent rate cut (not sure if this will affect mortgage rates much), I have started thinking about my mortgage. Here are the details:

5 year fixed at 3.63% with Tangerine.

Remaining balance : approx 64K

Bi weekly payment : $850

At this rate and payment sched, I should be paid off by February of 2018.

Refinance date coming in Sep 2017.

My wife and I have been aggressive with this, at the current schedule we will have paid off our house in 12 years (original amount was 168K), we will both be 38 when it is paid. We have increased payments when we could and ING used to let you adjust the rate down if it had fallen for no fee, of course a new 5 year term kicked in. At this point, my wife and I are not ready to increase payments, we have what we consider a nice mix of accelerated mortgage payments and investing going on. So my question is, not knowing what fees may be involved, is there a way to rework this to get out from under the mortgage significantly sooner? Only requirement is that our bi weekly payments stay the same.


----------



## Gimme the Green (Feb 4, 2014)

I've been playing around with my mortgage schedule, plugging in some numbers. Refinancing to a lower rate at this point in the game is not really gaining me a whole lot time wise or cash wise. I have no idea what fees are to refinance so that would eat into the savings as well. Might just be better to stay the course. I might call tangerine and threaten them with a move and see if I can shake them down for anything.....


----------



## My Own Advisor (Sep 24, 2012)

Paying down the mortgage is important, for sure, but if you're already making some lump sum payments (even at that rate), consider taking some cash and investing it.

You can likely (although nothing is guaranteed) to get a better rate of return than 3.7% from your equity investments over the next 3 years (until 2018).

A balance of $64k isn't too much left given you've already killed of $100k. Well done by the way


----------



## Gimme the Green (Feb 4, 2014)

My Own Advisor said:


> Paying down the mortgage is important, for sure, but if you're already making some lump sum payments (even at that rate), consider taking some cash and investing it.
> 
> You can likely (although nothing is guaranteed) to get a better rate of return than 3.7% from your equity investments over the next 3 years (until 2018).
> 
> A balance of $64k isn't too much left given you've already killed of $100k. Well done by the way


Thanks, really looking forward to getting the house paid off. Just like getting a huge raise at work! We invest regularly as well (e-series), buying automatically on payday. You are right about the investment returns, we both just can't wait to be totally debt free (house is our only debt).


----------



## Mortgage u/w (Feb 6, 2014)

you can certainly get a better rate than 3.63% today - a three year rate can easily be found at 2.69% which is 1 per cent less than your current rate. But given the time you have left and the fact you do not intend to borrow more funds nor increase the time remaining to pay off the mortgage, its not worth the effort to break your mortgage now. Stay on course - or increase your payments a little more so you that you can be debt free at the same time your mortgage term is due.


----------



## CrashTestSnoopy (Jan 21, 2015)

I agree, it's not worth to break it especially with 64k left. You're getting most of it back in the end anyways when you decide to sell. Also, I know you want to be debt free but just keep in mind we are never totally debt free as we have to pay property taxes each year regardless whether the mortgage is paid off or not. There is no free lunch. We can reduce our liabilities as much as possible but there is always an underlying hand in our pockets. Also, 3.63 is not as bad with the mortgage remaining and if your investments can earn more than that, you can think about allocating additional payments to investments instead. If you want to play it safe, then by all means pay down the mortgage.


----------



## CharlesF.Donahue (Jan 7, 2015)

A mortgage can be mentioned in a variety of altered ways, generally known as a home loan. Some people refer to a mortgage as a lien, which is the total money a debtor owes on a property. Increase your payment so that you can debt free easily.


----------

