Friday, February 23, 2018

Mortgage Balance (UPDATE) - February 2018


If you have viewed our family's Net Worth Page, you probably already know that it does not include the equity in our home.  Although, we do realize that it is technically part of our overall net worth, we decided that since our home equity is not an asset that we can count on for income (unless we sell and buy something cheaper) we would exclude it from our net worth calculation.

For the purpose of this blog, we are more interested in documenting our loan balance rather than our home equity.  With that said, we will use the current Zillow value as our estimated home value and use it to figure out the percentage we owe on our home. For those interested, we will include the amount of our home equity, but know that we are less concerned with the equity since we have no plans to cash out or otherwise sell our home. Our main goal is to pay off our home on or before my retirement date. 


HOME VALUE:
According to Zillow, our home is currently worth $825,770 (down $2,242 in the last 30-days). Up or down, it really doesn't mean much to us since we have no intention of selling our home.  We mainly post these updates to see the remaining mortgage balance and keep us motivated to push forward to be debt free (including our mortgage) one day!




Mortgage Balance (As of Feb 1st):
$266,014 (down $3,911 from our December post)

Percentage Owed:
32.2% (down .3% from our December post)

Home Equity:
$559,756 (down $275 from our December post)
   
Mortgage Background:
For those that have not read the Preface on our home equity, we currently hold a 15-year fixed rate mortgage at the incredibly low rate of 2.875%.  My goal is to retire within 9 years and 4 months (112 months) so we are setting out to pay off our mortgage on or before my retirement date. Right now we are a few months behind the target retirement date. Currently, we have approximately 10  years and 2 months (122 months) left on our mortgage. Nevertheless, I would like to have it paid off in 10 years or less. If we accomplish that, I plan to use the money we use to pay our mortgage and aggressively build our passive income to help supplement our retirement and defer tapping into the 457K as long as we can so it can continue to grow. 


Right now we are not putting any extra money towards the principal given our low 2.875% interest rate. We feel that we could make our money grow faster by investing it and while keeping the money more liquid. At a certain point, maybe in 6-8 years, we may consider using some of the money from our investment accounts to wipe out the remaining mortgage balance.  Until then, we will continue to grow that money outside, rather than have it locked into our home.

7 comments:

  1. AFFJ -

    Always love the mortgage updates, keep knocking it down!

    -Lanny

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Lanny, it’s fun to see the mortgage balance go down. :) AFFJ

      Delete
  2. Seems like a good choice in not payment more on the mortgage balance given the low interest rate. It's also awesome that you have it on a 15 year schedule as opposed to a 30 year one. That way you pay it off faster. Good luck on paying it off in 10 years.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, but as the balance gets closer to our liquid savings it’s going to get harder and harder to decide not to just pay off our house and be completely debt free. ;)

      Best wishes, AFFJ

      Delete
  3. Hi AFFJ, great to see you focusing on what you can control - the mortgage balance - rather than what you can't control, the equity value. Looks like you're making great progress!

    Cheers, Frankie

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes, thanks Frankie. Not worth anyone’s effort to concentrate on things beyond your control ;)

      AFFJ

      Delete
  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete