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Bi-Weekly Mortgage
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Did You Know?
Making one extra mortgage payment a year will knock years off your mortgage and save you thousands of dollars.
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If you search for "bi-weekly mortgage" on the Internet search engine, you will be overwhelmed by the number of companies offering "Bi-weekly Mortgage Reduction Services" or "Bi-weekly Savings Programs" for a fee (Please note that is not the word free!).
Beware of Bi-Weekly Mortgage Reduction Services and Savings Programs
These "Reduction Services" and "Savings Programs" are charging you fees to "make a bi-weekly mortgage payment" for you. The enticement is that they will save you an impressive amount of money on your mortgage and reduce the number of years you pay on your mortgage.
They are most likely making bi-weekly deductions from your bank account. These funds are placed into an account from which your monthly mortgage payment is made (which only takes 24 deductions - but during the course of a year 26 deductions will be made from your account). With the extra 2 deductions, the "Service" makes an additional mortgage payment once a year. In other words rather than making 12 mortgage payments, 13 payments are made.
The enticement is that they tell you they are providing a special service to you that would either not be possible for you to get on your own or that you won't have the time or discipline to make it happen.
The real story is that you can easily make an additional mortgage payment each year yourself and it doesn't cost you a dime. An easy way to do this is to have your mortgage payment automatically deducted from your account each month with an additional 1/12 payment amount to be applied to the principal amount. At the end of 12 months, you will have made an additional payment. Or, you can write a separate check every month with "Principal Reduction" in the memo area of the check.
Always consider taking a 30 year term. You can make additional principal reduction payments at no cost, which would equal a 15 year payment. You can always revert back to a 30 year payment without having to refinance, in the case of as an illness or job loss. Remember, if you are ill, or lose your job, you most likely will not be able to qualify for refinancing at that time, so give yourself your own insurance policy. And remember, you don't need to pay someone for something you can do yourself.
As always, email, call or text me. I will always give you "the rest of the story"! Sherry@SherryBitner.com or 941-504-1445.
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