Exactly. I paid down my principal to pay off my 30 year mortgage in 7 years.
If I was buying a house now, and there was no prepayment penalty, I’d chose the 50 year with it’s lower monthly payment and pay down the principal each month.
maybe 5% have the discipline to do such a thing, the rest will just wait the extra on other crap they dont need. Then complain decades later when they have no equity about the growing gap between the rich and poor.
LOL...what the heck does that do to a nervous dog??? Caffeine probably isn’t good for dogs, but...when I consider all the nasty things I have seen them eat, it can’t be THAT bad in comparison!
I’m just grabbing the first google result I got - and SmartAsset at least has fairly proper calculators - but my point is that amortization schedules are not linear.
The longer the note, the more of even FIXED rates are going to pay the interest on the note first.
Sure - you can pre-pay/pri-pay (but I’ll emphasize again, if you can afford a big payment? Why go 50 — or even 30 - if you can go 20 or 15?)
It’s just NOT a straight line; it’s a curve. It’s just how basic finance works.
The link above is a 7% over 30 - but bump that to 50? Yikes.... Now you’re *really* at the mercy at inflation, hoping you didn’t over pay, you’d damn well better have put down a big down payment, and hoping you bought in an area where your property appreciates and doesn’t run into a bubble crash or otherwise do anything other than appreciate.
There are absolutely some niche situations where a *smart* buyer might well find a perfect storm: Ridiculously low fixed rates (like 2021 or so), big down payment (at least, 20% or so), and it *absolutely* makes sense to take the longer term loan.
Like I said, my son and DIL got lucky to hit a sweet spot — the spread between a 15 and 30 fixed was less than 25 basis points. That’s a no-brainer. Take the 30. But that is EXCEEDINGLY rare... to the once-in-a-lifetime (if even that) situation.
They could/can self-amortize down to 15 easily - but at a 2.75 fixed? When even basic MM yields are 3-4%? Why bother.
However, I doubt we’ll EVER see that again... On a *50* year? You’ll be paying the interest by a huge ratio far longer.
It’s “rent to own”.... and that never works out well over the long term.