The Advantages of the Fixed Rate Mortgage Loan

There is a fixed rate mortgage loan for every budget. Often people are renting their homes because they feel they cannot afford to buy a home, which isn’t true. If you can afford a rent payment every month, then you can afford to take out a mortgage and buy a home. One of the most popular kinds of loans is the fixed rate mortgage loan. The fixed rate loan is a loan with a set interest rate for the duration of the loan. A fixed rate mortgage loan can be in the form of a 15, 20, 25 and 30 year loans. A 40 year loan is quite rare, but that too can be obtained with a fixed rate.

The longer the loan period is the lower the payments will be. If you were to sign up for a 40 year loan your payments would be extremely low; however, the interest you would pay on your loan over that specified time would more than double the amount you originally borrowed. If you take out a 30 year fixed rate mortgage loan your payments will still be fairly low, probably still lower than a rent payment, and the interest you would pay back will equal or exceed the amount you originally borrowed. The 15 year fixed rate mortgage loan is fairly short, so the payments are quite high, but the interest rate is about a half percentage point lower than with the 30 year loan. The amount of interest collected from a 15 year loan will only be about half of the original amount borrowed.

A selling point of the fixed rate mortgage loan is that the interest rate never changes for the duration of the loan. Your payment doesn’t change, so you know the amount you need to subtract from your budget every month. If you got your mortgage during a time when the interest rate was low, then if the interest rate goes up you will have saved money because your interest rate that you locked into didn’t change. Just as you will save money if the interest rate rises, you will also lose money if the interest rate should fall lower than the interest rate you locked into.

When you are negotiating for a low fixed rate mortgage loan, you may be able to get an even lower interest rate if you have a clause put into your contract that you will not pay your loan off early, or not pay it off early for a certain number of years. You would pay a penalty fee if you did pay off your loan off early. This agreement is often a bargaining point for the lender to offer a lower interest rate. The lender is fairly well assured that you won’t pay off your loan early, because the penalty fee is quite steep. The contract will state if the loan can be redeemed after a certain length of time. Sometimes the contract will allow you to redeem your loan after 7 to 10 years without a penalty.

There are many advantages of the fixed rate mortgage loan, and one of the biggest advantages is that your payments could be about the same as you pay for rent, or even a little bit lower. With a little time spent searching for the right loan, you can secure a fixed rate mortgage loan to fit perfectly into your budget.