Re: Basic Mortgage question
Yes, if you pay a big lump sum, a higher percentage of your future payments will be to principle. You can think of it this way:
At 6%, you are paying roughly 0.5% per month. So if you have $200,000 in principle, you owe $1,000 a month in interest. If your payments are $1,500, then you pay $1,000 in interest and $500 in principle each month.
If you whack that principle down to $50,000, then you owe only $250 a month in interest, so your $1,500 payments split $250 to interest and $1,250 to principle.
Make sure the bank applies your entire $150k to principle, though.. you may want to specify on your check "For principle only" or something like that. If there is a prepayment penalty or other such nonsense, they may try to snatch some of that money for no good reason. You shouldn't have a problem, but it always pays to make sure both sides are 100% clear whenever that kind of money is involved.
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