Over the past several years homeowners are facing the reality that their mortgage really is their biggest debt. With home values shooting up, homeowners have tapped into this equity to facilitate a more appealing lifestyle, ignoring what this will do to their financial position in the long run. Now with lenders closing shop left and right, mortgage originators dropping like flies and "creative" loan programs beginning to rear their ugly heads, there will be more demand to find solutions to foreclosures.
One of the programs that are beginning to surface is the concept of the Money Merge Account. The concept behind this plan is not new, and involves paying extra money to principal to cancel interest. Many homeowners do this now to a certain extent. With the bi-weekly payment plan a homeowner pay's two payments each month. With this they can expect to pay one extra mortgage payment per year.
In order to build equity more rapidly, you must have a lender that will immediately apply each 1/2 monthly payment upon receipt. If the lender waits until the second payment has been received before crediting the loan, you won't see the benefits. When worked properly, this is a decent plan and is effective in reducing your amortization schedule. One of the downsides of this is that there is no built-in plan to come up with the extra money.
Another method to paying off mortgage and other debt is the debt roll-down. The idea here is to set aside a certain amount for debt repayment and continue to maintain the total monthly amount you pay in debt reduction even after the first debt is paid off. You would then target each debt you have in the order of highest interest rate. This is effective, requires a lot of discipline but does not employ the concept of interest arbitrage, or interest cancellation.
The Money Merge Account is neither a bi-weekly or debt roll down. With the Money Merge Account, the homeowner would set up a specific type of HELOC (Home Equity Line Of Credit) that would be open-ended. In this case the interest would be charged on the average daily balance rather than month-end principal balance and would act as a primary checking account allowing monies to be deposited and withdrawn using checks, debit or transfers. Rather than using a standard checking or savings account where your money sits, waiting to be spent and doing nothing for you; you would use the functionality of the HELOC to compress the principal balance in which the interest is calculated (on an average daily balance).
Taking into consideration the structure and interest rates of the HELOC and the first mortgage, your income and expenses; the Money Merge Account software would prompt you periodically to make extra payments to your first mortgage. This prompt would be a specific dollar amount, to the penny and applied on a specific date as to maximize interest cancellation. Once the payment is made, the balance owed on the HELOC would go up, you would then deposit your paycheck back into the HELOC driving the average daily balance and interest charges back down canceling interest until it's time to pay expenses again.
By using this method, you are using a portion of your discretionary income which includes the offset interest from the HELOC. The extra payments to your first mortgage would not necessarily be applied every month; it would depend on your particular cash flow situation. With this method, the average homeowner will pay off their home in as little to to 1/3 the time.
So with the cooling real estate market and ever increasing demand for solutions to mortgage debt, many ideas will emerge, as necessity is truly the mother of invention. Whereas the concept of interest cancellation is not new, the systematic approach of the Money Merge Account software definitely is and worth a second look as a viable option.
I hope you have found this article informative and interesting. Feel free to contact me if you have questions.
-Greg Campbell
Greg Campbell is a San Diego based entrepreneur, independent agent for United First Financial, surfer and father of 2. Greg has been in the real estate and mortgage industry for many years. With the emerging real estate mortgage debt America is accumulating, Greg has shifted his focus on helping people overcome their financial bondage. For more info or to contact Greg, visit:
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