Great news. I received a letter in the mail today from Countrywide home loans. Apparently they’ve done the math for me and I could be paying less every month for my mortgage by switching to a 40 year loan. Here are the benefits that they listed:
-Lower your monthly payments
-Consolidate or pay down higher interest debt
-Get cash to do the things you want to do
-Streamline your finances
Talk about fluff. It’s too bad that they don’t show you a graph of how bad you’d be screwing yourself by turning a loan that has 26 years left on it into a new 40 year loan. Imagine the additional interest that you’d pay them. Heck, a 30 year mortgage is bad enough. I definitely wouldn’t want to extend it any farther. I ran the numbers once before out of curiousity and was amazed to see less than a $200 monthly reduction for another 10 years of debt. It’s definitely not for me. I can see where people in much more frothy markets might opt for it though, just to get in to a house.
Before you get too excited, I should probably tell you that this is an invitation only offer. Without a reservation number they won’t talk to you……… unless you have a pulse.