Customer Reviews

Understanding Your Mortgage

5 star:		(3)
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3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

_Lose Your Mortgage_ brings forward an important discussion: that of paying off your home and owning it free and clear rather than having a lifelong payment relationship with your lender. Its explanations of what it costs you to ignore the way monthly compounding works would be eye-opening to new homebuyers, though the examples using 10% interest are not very realistic for the 2006 revision date of this volume when rates were at their lowest in decades. (People with adjustable rates might be nearer 10% than 5%, but that wasn't the majority of the buying public in '06.)

Though the language sounds a little old-fashioned, its description of how to accomplish the same savings as one could with a biweekly mortgage - even if your lender isn't affiliated with a biweekly program - is certainly easy to follow and unmistakable.

Where the book falls down is in covering some of the more modern and in vogue techniques, such as using home equity in case you don't have the funds to double payments as the authors suggest. I would recommend Harj Gill's _Own Your Home Years Sooner_ or John Barker's _Let Your Mortgage Make You Rich!_ as more complete texts on mortgage reduction, with the latter covering the most approaches.

If you do not have a basic knowwdge of mortgages, then this book is for you, however if your trying to compare the pros and cons of different mortgage products, then this book falls short. It provides information that can easily be obtained either by speaking with various lenders, or by conducting research online, for free. The book should be titled Mortgage 101, and not the misleading title of lose your mortgage, because unless you have a lot of extra cash your still in it for the long haul.

Before reading this book, I hadn't the slightest idea about mortgages, the lending process or owning a home. This book layed out in a clear and concise way how mortgages work and how interest can affect your home loans. I had no idea it could take so long to actually begin to pay off your mortgage! For someone who barely made it through high school math successfully, the examples provided by the author help to illustrate the points made in a way even a math-challenged person can comprehend. I now feel I have the knowledge necessary to be able to own my own home sooner than I thought possible. The author communicates to the reader in such a way that it feels she is right there with you, explaining the whole process in a casual conversation. If you are feeling at all confused about mortgages and loans then pick up this book to ease your nerves.

I recently bought a house and this book TOTALLY helped me on how I could actually OWN it instead of the bank owning my house. With the way the market is today this book will help you feel more in charge of buying and owning your home as opposed to feeling crushed by the daunting interest rates. You will be VERY suprised as to what REALLY goes on when it comes to financing your home.

I'm really glad I read this book because there were some mortgage types that initially sounded like good ideas until I read about them in this book and looked at the examples given for each one. I could see what damage some loan types can actually do to unsuspecting buyers! I took an economics class last semester that talked about different types of mortgages but I never understood any of them until I read this book. Thank you in advance for saving me lots of money :)