I am happy to announce that I finally became a home owner a few months ago, part of the reason I have not been on here for a while. I am going to make it a point to pay a little extra on my house each month after I get some higher interest rate bills taken care of. Do any of you pay more on your homes?
After 15 years of paying installments, we have fully paid the mortgage of our home and we have the title now. My advice to new buyers of homes on mortgage is to be religious in paying the installments. It is a big headache to have arrears and be slapped with penalties. Make the mortgage your top priority and be wise with budgeting your money. It's a great feeling to own your home and you can only have it after paying the installments for years.
I am a member of Pagibig which extends housing loan to its members. As far as I could remember I was paying more a thousand pesos which is equivalent to around $47 USD. My salary at that time wasn't sufficient to cover the monthly installment so I had to resell to interested buyer. Since it was 20-year housing loan and it started sometime in 2000, well it will take 3 years more to go before it is fully paid since we are in 2017. I have no idea as to the payment if it is being increased or not.
Paying more for my house depends on the money I earn that month. My jobs are always on contracts and how much am paid varys. I always calculate a percentage of my total income that month and add it to the normal monthly payment. I still pay more but at an inconsistent rate.
I would have wanted to pay more towards my mortgage, but our terms only credit the extra payment if it is four months in excess of the amount due for the month. In addition, it requires some paper work to have the amount applied to the principal. Currently, since I am still in the process of paying off my credit card installments, I am investing what would have been extra payments in governments bonds. I would want to use this fund later to pay the mortgage in full when I'm done with my installments.
