If you are interested in buying a home and you plan to finance your home with a mortgage or home loan, a monthly mortgage payment is likely in your future.
For those who rented a home or apartment previously, the concept of making a monthly payment is a familiar one. However, as a homeowner making a monthly mortgage payment, your money won’t be going into your landlord’s pocket. Instead, your one monthly payment will help you cover a variety of things and help you earn equity in your home. This is a huge benefit of buying instead of renting!
So what exactly is covered in your monthly mortgage payment?
At American Mortgage Corporation, we make it easy to understand exactly what you are paying for every time you make a mortgage payment. Read on to find out what’s covered every time you make a monthly payment on your home.
Understanding Your Monthly Mortgage Payment
Wondering what exactly you are covering in the payments you make each month? Here is a breakdown of what’s included in the one easy payment you make each month.
1. Principal
The principal is the amount of money in your monthly payment that goes towards the actual cost of the home your purchased. In other words, it’s the amount you pay back to the lender each month.
Each time you contribute to the principal, the equity in your home increases and the principal amount you owe decreases.
2. Interest
If you are borrowing money from a lending institution to purchase your home, you will have to pay interest on the loan. Interest is a percentage of the loan amount paid to the lender over time in exchange for the use of the money they lent.
When you are first starting your mortgage payments, most of your mortgage payment will go towards paying down the interest on the loan. Over time, this will shift and you will begin paying more towards the principal portion of your mortgage, though your monthly payment amount will not change.
3. Taxes
As a property owner, you’ll be responsible for paying property and school taxes. If you’d been renting previously, this will likely be new for you.
Luckily, for many first time homebuyers, Escrow makes paying your annual taxes easy! With Escrow, a portion of your monthly mortgage payment is set aside to be used for covering the taxes on your new home. By incorporating tax payments right into your monthly mortgage payment, you won’t have to worry about saving to cover your school and property taxes.
4. Mortgage Insurance
If you’re like many first time homebuyers, who put less than 20% down on your home when you purchased it, your mortgage program will require you to pay mortgage insurance. Mortgage insurance, or PMI, protects lenders in case you default on your loan and are unable to pay it back. It is typically required for loans with low down payments.
The good news is that your mortgage insurance payment is not something extra you’ll have to worry about. It is completely covered as part of your monthly mortgage payment.
5. Homeowner’s Insurance
Your home is likely one of the most significant purchases you’ll make in your life. As a result, it’s incredibly important to protect it with a homeowners insurance policy.
As a new homeowner, you’ll want to research your options to decide the provider and policy that works best for you. If you are participating in Escrow, once you’ve selected a provider and policy you won’t have to worry about making a monthly payment. A portion of your monthly mortgage payment will automatically go towards covering your homeowner’s insurance payment.
New Homebuyers – Need Help Calculating Your Mortgage Payments?
As a new homeowner, with one easy monthly payment, you’ll cover a number of expenses associated with your new home.
At American Mortgage Corporation, we make sure that you completely understand every component of your monthly mortgage payment. Unlike other mortgage lenders, we will review everything with you thoroughly and disclose every cost you should expect ahead of time, so you don’t encounter any surprises when it comes to paying for your home.
Wondering how much you can afford to spend on a home? Interested in a Florida home and wondering what your monthly mortgage payment would be? We can help you figure it out!
At American Mortgage Corporation, we have years of experience helping first time homebuyers. We know the ins and outs of the mortgage process and can guide you every step of the way as you work to purchase your first home.
Interested in learning more? Give us a call at 888-402-6097 or contact us online to find out how we can help make the home buying process easier for you.
