[Texas Eagle]

Just for fun, ask your loan officer to print out a couple of reports for you.

Ask him to figure out how much interest you would pay on a 30 year loan and another report on how much interest you would pay on a 10 year loan.

Then, ask him to print out a report on how much interest you would pay if you got a 30 year loan and made the 10 year payments.

Then report back to me. I am willing to go out on a limb and say you will be astounded at the savings.

[Fred Mertz]

Just last week I did an online query for a refinancing deal. I've received a few e-mails, but haven't followed them up yet. Do you think I have leverage with my current mortgage company or am I just a number/serf to them?

[FairOpinion]

You are forgetting that you should also look at a report, where you take a 30 year mortgage, and taking the difference in payments between the 30 year and 10 or 15 year and invest it and look at where that money grows. People keep ignoring that part.

[Atlas Sneezed]

"Then, ask him to print out a report on how much interest you would pay if you got a 30 year loan and made the 10 year payments."

Looking only at total payments is an economically naive approach that emotionally and irrationally ignores the time value of money.

If you must do this, also have your broker put together a scenario of what the monthly savings (with the long-term loan's lower payments), would yield when invested over the same period. If you ignore this, you miss Edelman's entire point.