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Yesterday was 40 yr
select-fire
Member Posts: 69,452 ✭✭✭✭
Since we assumed a mortgage on our first home. 1982 home price was 27900 for a 2000 Square foot ranch with a two car garage. Payment was like 138 bucks a month. Have times changed.
Comments
It's been 52 years since we took out our first mortgage. It's been 22 years since we took out our second mortgage, and paid it off in 7 years. The bank manager wasn't very happy with us, since the bank lost 23 years of interest.
Joe
I bought my first house at age 23 in 1977. Payments were $182.25 for 20 years. I remember thinking "I'll be an old man when I get this paid off".🤣
Our first was around '89 or '91 don't remember exactly but it was a townhouse in Moorpark, CA with a VA loan of about $132,000.00 2 bd, 2 ba, 2 car with a backyard you could mow with a weed wacker, payments were around 550 plus I think about 150 for home owners association... Moved to Texas shortly there after and spent the same amount and got a brand new 2 story house on 10 acres...
Our first home was a brand new 14 by 70 Liberty house trailer. It cost a whopping 10K back in 1976. It was in a park where the monthly lot rent ran 40 dollars and the payments on the home with a thousand dollar down payment were 125.00 dollars a month.
Lived there until the Spring of 78 when we sold it and bought our first brick and mortar home. An older very well kept brick 2 story with full basement and 2 car unattached garage on a city lot in a nice neighborhood. The folks that lived there had died of old age and their kids couldn't sell the place quick enough! They were asking 39,900. and accepted my offer of 31,000.
Payments pretty much cancelled themselves out. The upstairs was a completely furnished 2 bedroom apartment that made my mortgage payments. Downstairs living area for my family had 3 bedrooms and close to 1000 sq.' of living area.
I worked with a guy who was extremely wealthy,but you would never know and he would never admit it.He worked hard and got dirty like the rest of us every day.He never wasted anything that belonged to him or the company.Most days a pack of crackers and a soft drink was his lunch.One of the stories he told me was that when he and his wife were married in the early 70s they bought 3 acres and built a house.Total cost was $28,000.He said for the first 4 years they were married they lived off his salary and all of his wifes salary went to the mortgage.They paid off a 30 year mortgage in 4 years.His wife was a smart investor and they did very well.They proved to me that regular working people can do well in finances if the will power is there.
Bubba-If you look carefully at the mtg. documents you'll see the front end is loaded with the interest $ and the principle $ are far less than the dollars put towards the interest!
What we did was to make the payment when due, then pay 1/2 two weeks later which would go against the principle. That strategy if taken to its conclusion will pay off the mortgage 7 years earlier.
After doing this for 7 years, we just made a lump sum payment to finish off the loan which was a total of just over 225K for the house and barn. We paid cash for the 23.25 acres.
Joe
We took on our first Mortgage 32 years ago this month. We had two young babies at the time and our landlord called and said " I lost our farm and I have to sell everything" you have 30 days to move. We lived in Northern Illinois at the time and as I recall the outside temp was 24 below that day..
I asked him what he wanted for the place as is....He had already hired a realtor and the market was pretty hot at the time. He blew me off and repeated 30 days and hung up. His wife dropped by later that day to apologize for the situation and I looked her in the eye and told her I did not want to try to move two young children in the middle of winter. I told her we were interested in buying the place....
A few hours later the realtor called and started yelling at me that landlord's wife was making them give us first shot at it and he threw out an outrageous number. I countered with a number several thousand less and he told me to drop dead. I pointed out to him he had a ligit offer and needed to take it to his clients. I ran by his office with a correct offer form and tried to give it to him with 500.00 Earnest money. He demanded 1000.00. I called the landlord's wife (who actually owned the house) and she said 500.00 was fine and told the realtor they accepted the offer.
We closed 30 days later. We lived there 5 more years and we doubled our money and moved into the house we always wanted...We paid that one off 14 years early. It is interesting to see the banker's face when you do that.
Since then we retired and were able to move into our current place mortgage free !!!