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In Canuck-land, you amoritize the loan over 20-25 years, but lock in for shorter periods for interest rates. We took a loan over five years, but payments based on twenty. We had options for pre-payment, which we took advantage of.
We paid $140,000 for our house which is a 1750' four bedroom house with three full baths in a very nice upper middle class neighbourhood. We paid off $10K in the normal monthly payments, another $45K from the Porsche plus the $50K we put down. The rest we paid off in lump sums when possible. After paying the C230 off, we put the payment amount away to pay off the house faster. Then, we took the loan on the E300 which put the kibosh on that, but after we sold the E300 and bought the Subaru we had no car payment again, so we kept putting the $900 a month away for the house, on top of the normal payment.
When we were looking at refinancing, we had the house appraised (as well for updating our insurance) and it came at $255,000. The market has moved up lots in the last five years. However, I don't anticipate any loss since we have just now caught up to replacement value.
There ain't a ton of cash left in the bank (other than long term investments) but at least we're completely debt free now. I have also spent a few bucks lately that have left us not-flush-with-moolah, but you only live once. We upgraded the Subaru from 1999 to 2001 model and I bought the Hayabusa. The bike wasn't too bad as I sold the Honda for an excellent price.
Hopefully the cheque writing has slowed. Well, it has to, since there just ain't much left to write them against!!
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