Missing opportunity cost of mortgage prepayment
"You seem to really have your financial act together.  Your combination of assets, and ongoing savings makes you the ideal candidate for paying it off. One way to look at it is that your mortgage offers you a place to 'invest' at a fixed 2-7/8% rate. ""I'd really like to not have a house payment"" is all I need to hear.  The flip side is the lecture that talks about long term market returns, the fact that the combination of your deductible mortgage, but 15% cap gain rate means you need 2.5% return to break even, and odds are pretty high that will occur over the next 15 years. ""pretty high"" does not equal ""guaranteed"". And I won't debate the value of sleeping soundly vs an excess 5-8% return on this money that you'd maybe achieve.  You haven't missed anything. In fact, though I advocate saving first, you are already doing that. This is above and beyond. Good work." One other consideration is that by paying off your mortgage early versus, for example, investing that capital in a mutual fund is that you are reducing your net liquidity to some degree. That is, if you find yourself needing an emergency infusion of cash it is easier to sell a stock/fund than to sell your house or get a equity loan.  I suppose if you were planning to need a lot of cash to start a business or invest in real estate, then maybe it would make sense to keep your cash more liquid. However, in your situation I agree with Joe. Pay it off. It feels REALLY good to write that last check! I agree with Joe that you seem to have your stuff together. However I can't disagree more otherwise.  You are getting a loan at such a cheap rate that it would be almost impossible to not substantially beat that rate over the next 15-20 years.  You paying off your home early might give you warm fuzzy feeling but would make me queezy.  This is a MONEY website.  Make money. For our purposes let's say your home is worth 500k, you can get a fixed rate loan at 3% over 30 years, and you can earn 7% on your investments per year.  Note that I have earned 12% on mine the past 15 years so I am being pretty conservative. So let's not get into your other stuff because that is fine.  Let's focus just on that 500k - your house. Interest only Loan for the whole thing-  The flip side is you pay off your house.  Your house could be worth 400K in 30 years.  Probably not but neighborhood could decline, house not kept up, or whatever.  Your house is not a risk-free investment.  And it fluctuate in many areas more than the stock market.  But let's just say your area stays OK or normal.  In 30 years you can expect your house to be worth somewhere between 700k to 1.5 million.  Let's just say you did GREAT with your house.  Guess what?  At 1.5 million selling price you still lost 1.5 million because of your decision plus sunk your money into a less liquid option.   Let the bank take the risk on your house price.  The warm fuzzy feeling will be there when you realize you could rebuy your house two times over in 6-7 years. Note: I know my example doesn't use your exact numbers.  I am just showing what your true cost is of making a decision in the most extreme way.  I am guessing you have great credit and might be able to find an all interest loan at 3%.  So not doing this is costing you 1.5 million over 30 years.  Given a lower home price after 30 years or a higher rate of return this easily be much more.  IF you earned 12% over the 30 year period you would be costing yourself 16 million - do the math.  Now you are talking about doing something in-between.  Which means you will basically have the same risk factors with less return.
"Usually not the total interest, but all interest accrued and unpaid to date. This is called the ""Loan Payoff Amount"", and repays the bank their principal plus the ""true"" cost of capital on that principal since your last amortized payment (which is probably never, since you just signed the loan papers). There may also be a ""prepayment penalty"". This is something that should have been disclosed to you if it exists, but it's fairly rare in U.S. mortgages anymore.  The theory is, the bank got the money they paid you at the start of the loan by selling a bond package backed by your mortgage and others of similar credit history and/or about the same time (a ""mortgage-backed security""). By turning around and paying early, you meet your obligation, but the bank is now stuck with at least 10 years of quarterly coupon payments on that bond, which they were expecting to pay using your mortgage interest. For their trouble, you would pay an additional amount that either covers their ""call price"" on the portion of the bonds used for your principal, or simply buys them the time to re-issue a new mortgage using your repaid principal to back the bond again. In the modern housing market, such a prepayment penalty is very rare, because so many lenders are willing to give you a mortgage without one, and so many buyers balk at the thought of having to pay more if they pay early; the whole point is to pay less by paying early. Just something to look up in your mortgage documentation." "It really depends on the answers to two questions: 1) How tight is your budget going to be if you have to make that $530 payment every month?  Obviously, you'd still be better off than you are now, since that's still $30 cheaper. But, if you're living essentially paycheck to paycheck, then the extra flexibility of the $400/month option can make the difference if something unforeseen happens.  2) How disciplined (financially) have you proven you can be? The ""I'll make extra payments every month"" sounds real nice, but many people end up not doing it. I should know, I'm one of them. I'm still paying on my student loans because of it. If you know (by having done it before), that you can make that extra $130 go out each and every month and not talk yourself into using it on all sorts of ""more important needs"", then hey, go for it. Financial flexibility is a great thing, and having that monthly nut (all your minimum living expenses combined) as low as possible contributes greatly to that flexibility.  Update: Another thing to consider Another thing to consider is what they do with your extra payment. Will they apply it to the principal, or will they treat it as a prepayment? If they apply it to principal, it'll be just like if you had that shorter term. Your principal goes down additionally by that extra amount, and the next month, you owe another $400.  On the other hand, if they treat it as a prepayment, then that extra $130 will be applied to the next month's bill. Principal stays the same, and the next month you'll be billed $270.   There are two practical differences for you:  1) With prepayment, you'll pay slightly more interest over that 60 months paying it off. Because it's not amortized into the loan, the principal balance doesn't go down faster while the loan exists. And since interest is calculated on the remaining principal balance, end result is more interest than you otherwise would have paid. That sucks, but:  2) with the prepayment, consider that at the end of year 2, you'd have over 7 months of payments prepaid. So, if some emergency does come up, you don't have to send them any money at all for 7 months. There's that flexibility again. :-)  Honestly, while this is something you should find out about the loan, it's really still a wash. I haven't done the math, but with the interest rate, amount of the loan and time frame, I think the extra interest would be pretty minor." "So you being born where you were with the opportunities you were given, just because you made the most of them you feel that luck wasn't any part of it?  And a child born in a very poor, impoverished location without those opportunities should be expected to succeed just as well as you, and if they didn't then that means they just ""didn't work as hard as you""?  I'm sorry, but fuck everything about that sentiment.  Sure, you worked hard, pat yourself on the back.  But dismissing everyone else in the world simply because you think they just didn't work as hard as you completely misses the Lewis' point.  You were lucky to even have those opportunities, you should at the very least be thankful that you were given those opportunities." "&gt; Despite the fact that this correlation between immigration and wages is well-documented  Link does not go to proper documentation. Link goes to another article on the same site, with the title ""3 Reasons Why Mass Immigration Is Bad For The Economy"" and subtitle ""Is Immigration Good for the Economy?  No, Not Always"". Please make up your minds.  &gt; The evidence suggests otherwise, including new data reported by Fox.  It looks like this bit is the closest thing there to proper data:  &gt; Just how bad is it? According to the National Association of Home Builders, more than 56 percent of developers nationwide are reporting labor shortages.   &gt; NAHB says the problems started when the recession hit and domestic construction workers dropped out of the market to find other jobs. At the same time, immigrant workers went back to their home countries. But as the economy has picked up and the construction industry has heated up, those workers have remained missing.   Yeah, that's not even close to as clear as they're making it out to be.  &gt; In fact, according to Ted Wilson of Residential Strategies Inc. construction costs have risen by 30% this year—the majority of which is due to higher wages and increased overtime pay.  Heh. That Fox article says wages are about 60% of costs. A bit of math says that a 30% increase in costs that was due *entirely* to wage increases would mean wages had gone up by 50%. That's a missed opportunity by the article writers -- the headline really should say that wage-growth is ""up to 50%"". ;)  (Math: given $100 costs, $60 would be labor. A 30% increase is +$30. If that's all from labor, it would have gone from $60 to $90, and 90 / 60 == 1.5, or a 50% increase.)  .  Also, back to the leading paragraph:  &gt; There is a strong correlation between immigration—particularly illegal immigration—and wages.  This should be obvious to anyone familiar with the fundamental principle of supply and demand: more supply (workers) means lower prices (wages), and vice versa.  There's an example of how it's nowhere near that simple at http://voxeu.org/article/impact-immigration-barriers-native-workers :  &gt; Many claim that immigrants negatively affect the labour market prospects of native workers in advanced countries. This column studies a large change in immigration restrictions in the US – the 1965 exclusion of almost half a million Mexican seasonal farm workers (braceros) from the US labour market. The bracero exclusion did not increase the employment or wages of native workers, and technology adoption was one of the adjustment channels.   (Note I'm not saying *wrong* this time -- the VoxEU article is specifically about a case where there was existing technology available to replace the lost workers.)" I am answering this in light of the OP mentioning the desire to buy a house.  A proper mortgage uses debt to income ratios. Typically 28/36 which means 28% of monthly gross can go toward PITI (principal, interest, tax, insurance) and the total debt can go as high as 36% including credit cards and car payment etc. So, if you earn $5000/mo (for easy math) the 8% gap (between 28 and 36) is $400. If you have zero debt, they don't let you use it for the mortgage, it's just ignored. So a low interest long term student loan should not be accelerated if you are planning to buy a house, better put that money to the down payment. But for credit cards, the $400/mo carries $8000 (banks treat it as though the payment is 5% of debt owed). So, I'd attack that debt with a vengeance.  No eating out, no movies, beer, etc. Pay it off as if your life depended on it, and you'll be happier in the long run. Surely the yield should be Yield = (Rent - Costs) / Downpayment ? As you want the yield relative to your capital not to the property value. As for the opportunity cost part you could look at the risk free rate of return you could obtain, either through government bonds or bank accounts with some sort of government guarantee (not sure what practical terms are for this in Finland). The management fee is almost 30% of your rent, what does this cover? Is it possible to manage the property yourself, as this would give you a much larger cushion between rent and expenses. The mortgage is a debt and you pay interest on it, typically more than you can earn elsewhere (especially once taxes are taken into account.) By lowering the principal, you lower the total interest you pay. This is true whether you sell the house after 1 year, 10 years, or 100 years. In your case, prepayments made in the next few years would mean that when you sell, your mortgage principal would be lower than it otherwise would have been, and your house equity will be higher. You can therefore either move up to more house for the same monthly payment, or have a lower monthly payment for the same kind of house. Either of those are good things, right? Now is the easiest time to find a little more money, so do it if you can. Later you will have more obligations, and develop a taste for more expensive things (statistically speaking) and therefore find a few hundred a month much harder to come by. Why won't anyone just answer the original question? The question was not about opportunity cost or flexibility or family expenses. There are no right answers to any of those things and they all depend on individual circumstances. I believe the answer to the question of whether paying off a 30-year mortgage in 15 years would cost the same amount as a 15-year mortgage of the same interest rate is yes but ONLY if you pay it off on the exact same schedule as your supposed 15-year. In reality, the answer is NO for two reasons: the amortization schedule; and the fact that the 30-year will always have a higher interest rate than the 15-year. The way mortgages are amortized, the interest is paid first, essentially. For most people the majority of the monthly payment is interest for the first half of the loan's life. This is good for most people because, in reality, most mortgages only last a couple years after which people refinance or move and for those first couple years the majority of one's housing costs (interest) are tax deductible. It is arguable whether perpetuating this for one's entire life is wise... but that's the reality of most mortgages. So, unless you pay off your 30-year on the exact same amortization schedule of your theoretical 15-year, you will pay more in interest. A common strategy people pursue is paying an extra monthly payment (or more) each year. By the time you get around to chipping away at your principal in that way, you will already have paid a lot more interest than you would have on a 15-year. And, really, if you can afford to substantially pay down principal in the first year or two of your mortgage, you probably should've borrowed less money to begin with. In theory, IF the rates were the same (they're not) and IF you paid the 30 off every month in the EXACT same way as you would've paid a 15 (you won't) you will pay the same amount in the end. You have to decide if the flexibility is worth more to you than the cost savings.  For example: a 300k mortgage at 3.5% will have a monthly payment of ~$2150 for a 15-year and ~$1350 for a 30-year, both will start with ~$875/month of that being in interest (gradually declining with time). What I think most people undervalue is the freedom and peace of mind that comes with a paid off or nearly paid off home... and 15 years is a lot more tangible than 30, plus a lot cheaper over all. If you can afford a 15-year mortgage without putting too much stress on your budget, it is definitely the better option for financial security.  And be careful of the index fund opportunity cost advice. On average it may be a good idea when you look at the very long run, historically, but a lot of people get less than average returns depending on when they buy and what the market does in the short run. There is no certainty around what returns you will get from the stock market, but if you have a 30-year mortgage there is a lot of certainty around what you will owe every month for the next 30-years. Different mixes of investments make sense for different people, and most people would be wise to get some exposure to the stock market for its returns and liquidity. However, if someone's goal is borrowing more money for their house in order to invest more money in the stock market for their retirement, they would actually be better served in achieving security and independence 15 years sooner.