Pay off Mortgage in half the time

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How to Pay off Your Mortgage in 1/2 The time

Thanks to Eave for sponsoring this post.

Mickey and I knew that we had one goal when we bought our home: Pay our mortgage off in half the time. We came up with a plan to pay it off 20 years sooner than we had predicted (so actually less than half the time).

When we first bought our house, we knew that it was going to be an exciting, yet daunting task. Moving, finding a trusted mortgage partner to help along the way, etc… By our third move, we had four young kids that we were moving to a new house. It was no easy task!

The upside: we were buying the house that we loved. The home-searching process is always fun for me, but the home-buying process is a whole new ballgame.

Vetting your needs for a new home can be hard and finding the right lender/partner can be even harder. Mickey worked for a mortgage and insurance company for many years before working from home, so he knew what to look for in a company.   In fact, friends of ours in Colorado just went with Eave – they are an ethical mortgage company.  They make the mortgage process as transparent & as simple as possible, removing lender fees and keeping the rates low.    They also offer a concierge service. They have local loan officers on call for every step of the way, which is unlike a lot of other mortgage companies which outsource their call centers.

Overall, the key to a mortgage company is finding one, like Eave, that can save you stress and time by being helpful.  Eave does most of the underwriting ahead of time, within one day.  It can save you from that last-minute stress and worry of a deal not working out.   They offer the guarantee to close successfully and on-time, too.

Most of all, I like that they make a major donation, in the customer’s name, to help build homes in India for every loan they make.

I can’t stress enough how important it is to find a mortgage partner that makes you feel secure during this move. It’s a big decision in your life. Owning a home is one of the largest financial milestones.

HOW TO PAY OFF YOUR MORTGAGE SOONER:

Buy low and put in some sweat equity.
We are not afraid to “fix up” anything. My husband & dad have made so many improvements to each of our homes (adding porches, building things…) Don’t be afraid to purchase something that isn’t “perfect” – you can make it so much better than you imagined!New Every Two.  Our first realtor once told us to “sell every two years” and soon enough you’ll be in the house of your dreams if you follow the buy-low, work-hard, sell-high mentality.   We did this for our first few years, but once we had kids… we decided to put down roots and we haven’t moved since. Don’t be scared of buying a foreclosure.
Our current house is a foreclosure and it saved us over $100,000.   It had nothing wrong with it at all (and kind of shocked me when I walked in)Pay your mortgage bi-weekly.
You can set your mortgage up to come out every other week. This alone would pay a house off 8 years sooner, but if you add to the principal, you can pay it off much sooner.Set a goal.
Our goal was always to pay off our home before our oldest son went to college, so we could just send that mortgage payment right towards college tuition.Don’t spend.
We followed the rule of putting all of our extra income towards the house (no new cars, electronic devices or fancy vacations until it was paid off).If you have any extra income (tax returns, etc…) put it towards the principal.
We paid our house off over 20 years sooner by doing these things.