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Archive for the ‘Amortization Calculator’ Category

There are many people that tell us that pulling your credit and having credit inquiries will always damage your credit score. Well, I want to shine some light on the subject, because that is not always true.

Before we can debunk the credit inquiry myth, it is important to know that there are two types of credit inquiries. Although this system for inquiries isn’t new, many people don’t want to talk about it because of two reasons: 1. they just don’t know better, or 2. they want to keep this information from you in order for their scare tactic to work on you.

So, let’s get right into it.

The first type of credit inquiry is a soft credit inquiry, or soft pull, because you are the one requesting your own credit. When you request your own credit, there is absolutely no damage to your credit or credit score whatsoever. The reason is simple. How can you properly monitor your credit if you get penalized every time you access it? (You are monitoring your credit, aren’t you?)

So, you can actually access your credit every month to check for errors or new account history or whatever, and your credit score will not decrease.

There, the secret is out! But before you get too excited about this, I also have to mention to you that lending institutions, whether you are applying for a mortgage, a car loan, or a credit card, will not use your credit report for your safety and theirs. It all comes down to accountability.

If I brought in my own credit report to you, and asked you to lend me $200,000 for a house, and you didn’t check my references, but solely went off of what I provided you, would you lend me the money? Chances are, you wouldn’t. Well, believe it or not, there are still people out in this world that forge documents to get what they want.

On the other hand, when the bank pulls your credit, their name, account number, and contact information appears on your report, so they know for certain that the information that they have is real. But, more importantly, if they falsify anything just to get your loan through, they get the lawyers after them, not you. Don’t worry though, this doesn’t happen too often, but you should know about it anyway.

The other part of soft inquiries is when you get a pre-approved offer from credit cards in the mail. They have in fact taken a look at your credit; however, since you didn’t request it of them, it doesn’t damage your credit either. It is only when you solicit a loan that requires a credit report to be pulled that you may see your credit score decrease. As a matter of fact, when you access your own report, these “soft” inquiries from companies will all be listed out for you, so you can see who has accessed your information.

That brings us to the second type of credit inquiry, which are the hard inquiries. I’ve already touched on these, but let me get a little deeper into them. These are the inquiries that you get from applying for credit cards, insurance, school loans, mortgages, auto loans, installment loans (like furniture), and other types of credit.

Since this is for commercial use, and you are looking to obtain credit with these companies, these are the damaging ones. Now, if you have only pulled your credit once or twice in 6 months, you have no worries. However, if you apply for 2 or 3 credit cards a month, your score can potentially drop even 80 points in a short period of time. Be careful and smart about applying for credit. If possible, spread them out over time, but only if you really need them (which many times you don’t).

Finally, there are two last points that I want to make in regards to hard inquiries. If you get crazy on the credit applications, there comes a point where the credit score will stop going down, because the maximum damage has already been done. So, let’s say that you pull your credit a million times in 5 days, that wouldn’t do more damage than pulling it 100 times in 5 days, because you’ve already exhausted all the damage that can be done with credit inquiries. There are other factors that can lower your score, but in that case, additional credit inquiries will not.

In addition to that fact, mortgage and auto loans operate a little differently as well. For these two, you have a 14 day window which you can shop around for a mortgage or car loan without any further damage. So, if you are shopping for a mortgage, you have 14 days to look around and multiple companies can access your credit without any damage to your score. The same goes with an auto loan. You just can’t flip flop, and apply for a mortgage and within 14 days apply for a car thinking that you will not get penalized, because that would be 2 inquiries since car loans and home loans are different kinds.

If you’ve been looking at any large balance loans regardless of whether it’s for a house, car, new equipment for business or something else entirely that you must understand that you cannot simply look at the main or base cost and then expect that  will be all you’ll be paying, unless of course you decide to pay in full and in cash. But that is generally not the way most people will end up owning their vehicle. In short, you’re most likely going to need a loan and as such you’ve got some work to do before you go and apply.

Of course, you want to make sure of your budget first and the easiest way to do this is to use an amortization calculator. Although some say that using this gets in the way of going after what they want. However it is always a good idea to know exactly what you’ll be able to pay and for how long rather than running off without this information although this is tempting especially the case of a new car!

Similarly, there are those that say that using an amortization calculator complicates things to the extent that they get confused and cannot figure out exactly what their payments should be or what the can afford. While this can be true for some, here again you want to make sure that you find one that is easy to use it yet allows you to play with the amounts, the length of time, and of course the interest rates. The reason you want to do this is you want to not only have your first and best option you also want to have several different options available to you. After all, I’ve yet to hear about any lender accepting someone’s very first offer.

So it pays for you to play with the numbers and have several different options available so that you can more easily and more quickly come to an agreement with the lender of your choice. This is where an amortization schedule calculator is invaluable because it allows you to see a clear picture of your financial obligation as it pertains to the loan you want. It also allows you to truly figure out what exactly you can afford.

An amortized loan can be a car loan or a home loan, as long as it is for one specific amount that is to be paid off by a certain date in equal installments. Parts of the payment go toward the interest cost and the remainder goes toward the principal amount. Interest calculated is based on the current amount owed. As the ending balance of the loan reduces, the interest also decreases progressively, termed as “amortization.”

Like mortgages, with an amortized loan during the first few months/years of the loan term, a greater percentage of the payment goes toward interest in comparison to principal balance or the amount borrowed. This can be explained with a mortgage loan for $100,000 at 6.5 percent for 30 years as an example:

The monthly principal and interest payment is $632.07. For the first month, the interest owed for $100,000 is equal to $541.67. The remainder of the payment, $90.40, goes toward principal, thereby reducing the debt by that amount.

The interest owed drops down to $99,909.60 in the second month, so $541.18 goes to interest and $90.89 goes to principal. The interest goes on decreasing with each passing month while the principal reduction increases, and continues until $3.41 goes to interest and $628.66 to principal on the 360th payment.

Basically, half the loan has been paid off after 256 payments (21 years and 4 months). The other half can be paid off in 8 years and 8 months. A typical amortization schedule calculator would produce an amortization table displaying how much interest and how much principal, from the first to the last, is included in each monthly payment.

A payment amortization calculator is something that people will use in order to determine what the periodic payment will be on a loan and in most cases a mortgage loan. This calculation is based on the amortization process and will factor in various different figures such as the interest and principal payments to be made on every repayment even though the total amount of each repayment is the same.

By using a payment amortization calculator you will be able to discover what the exact amount is that goes towards the interest repayments and what amount goes towards the principal balance payments in each payment that you make. Whilst the calculation to be arrived at for the periodic payments (monthly) will assume that the first payment you are due to make on the loan will not be happen until one month after the loan was actually taken out. So if your loan was taken out on say the 1st January 2007 then the payment amortization calculator will schedule your payments to commence on the 1st February 2007.

Also this particular calculator is able to help you create a complete payment schedule for the life of the loan and provide you with information relating to the principal and interest that will need to be paid on a monthly or yearly basis.

Luckily for you there are plenty of online payment amortization calculators available which will help you weigh up the various different options you have with regard to loans and will be able to provide you with payment details accordingly. In order to get a correct figure you will need to input the mortgage loan amount, the interest rate as well as how long you want the term of the mortgage loan to be for. Once this information has been input then the payment amortization calculator will then provide you with a table which tells you how much of the loan is getting paid off and it will help you to understand just how you are paying the mortgage loan off. As you will soon see that in the table provided by the payment amortization calculator the monthly payments will change over the life of the loan. In the beginning most of the money that you pay in order to repay the loan goes towards covering the interest payments and then as time elapses more of the money will then go into paying off the principal part of the loan (the actual loan amount that you originally took out) and a much smaller part of any payment then covers the interest costs.

Both a mortgage calculator and an amortization table can be used to find out the monthly payment required on the property you would like to buy, but they approach the calculation differently.

Although they have similar functions, the mortgage calculator and the amortization table each have their own place in your mortgage control system.

Mortgage calculators range from ones that calculate a simple loan, to those that can work out exactly how much you can afford, to those that will determine how much you can borrow for a home loan depending on your current situation. Mortgage calculators are a good way for you to get a general idea of what you need.

An amortization table, on the the other hand, is an extensive spreadsheet of every detail of each type of loan, length of loan, interest rate, and many other factors that can confuse a novice.

A mortgage calculator may not give you as much information as an amortization table, but it may present basic information clearer and quicker. Once you have a good idea what you want in a loan, then an amortization table can help you delve deeper into the long-term ramifications of the loan.

They can be used separately, but their strength lies in a combination of both to enable a closer watch of the financial picture of your mortgage.

The amortization schedule calculator, which can be found on the internet, can aid you in calculating an accurate amortization schedule as it applies to loans or mortgages you are looking into. This schedule will give you an accurate account of what your payments will likely be each month, what amount of your payments are applied to the principal of the loan, as well as what amount is applied to the interest.

The internet is a great source for finding amortization schedule calculators. Typically the calculators are scripts, written in PHP language allowing the calculator to calculator mortgages and loan amortizations fairly quickly, producing your schedules almost instantly. To use the calculator simply type in how much you intend to the loan to be, the current rate of interest, as well as the number of years you intend to pay on the loan. You will also likely have to enter the starting date of the loan. With this information, the calculator will produce an amortization schedule which shows you, in detail, various bits of information about the loan.

The amortization schedule you receive will be pretty self explanatory. First, you will notice it outlines your payments each month, including the date on which the payments are to be made. Then you will also notice that the payments themselves are divided up as well. This is showing you what parts of your payment is being applied to where. For example, part of each payment will be applied to the loan principal, the actual amount you borrow. Another part of every payment will be applied towards the interest of the loan.

After each payment is to be made, the amortization schedule will provide you with a fresh balance. The schedule gives you a full break down of the inner workings of your loan or mortgage. It provides you will a yearly outlook as well as a month to month outlook.

Calculating an amortization loan schedule will give you a better outlook at what you have to pay each month, which then allows you to analyze your own financial situation and budget, giving you the proper tools to make the right decision for your life.