Comments on: Never Pay a Premium to Pay Your Mortgage

By: Kevin

Kevin — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 13:08:18 +0000

I mean I would understand if they sent me one or two of each of the flyers. They are trying to increase their revenues. But seriously… bombarding your customers with mailers? Annoying. Unprofessional.

@Adam: thanks for the heads up. That makes sense.

@Fit Wallet: Exactly. 99% of the time it isn’t “important”, but the one time you don’t open it it turns out to actually be important.

@My Journey: Sounds like you live in an intelligent (if not heavily taxed!) state. Not so sure that applies down here in Alabama.

By: Russell Fascenda

Russell Fascenda — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 23:32:30 +0000

Good post about the make 13 payments a year “service”, as you say just add something to each month’s payment. Or better yet, do what the service will do:

Every 4 weeks put a mortgage payment into your savings bank, and at the end of each month make the normal payment. At the end of the year, you will have one extra payment saved up, plus a little bit of interest. Use that to make an extra payment on your mortgage principal.

You’ll also have the $108 leftover, pay yourself for providing the service! Or put that into the extra payment as well.

By: My Journey

My Journey — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 21:55:18 +0000

NDP,

Many States (I am positive about NY – it was on the bar exam lol) do not allow for pre-payment penalties if it is after 1 year. So even if its in the contract it may be an illegal clause and moot.

By: Adam

Adam — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 20:08:02 +0000

I used to sell life insurance and those cards go to lead companies. Once you are in their system, insurance agents can then buy those leads. When someone is a warm lead (they sent in the card and expressed interest in life insurance) they are much more valuable to agents and they are willing to pay for them. It’s unfortunate that they keep sending them to you though. You would figure that if someone doesn’t send in the card the first 5 times they are not interested.

By: Start-Up

Start-Up — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 18:35:14 +0000

I can not agree more that you should never ever get a mortgage that has a pre-payment penalty. In addition to what you wrote, it discourages you from refinancing to a lower rate, which could save your 100′s of dollars a month in mortgage payments.

I also agree with not doing the whole bi-weekly program. I refuse to pay for a service that I can do myself.

By: Fit Wallet

Fit Wallet — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 16:53:42 +0000

I’ve probably gotten about that many mortgage life insurance mailers too. The most irritating part is seeing “IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT YOUR MORTGAGE” printed on the front of the envelope, so even if I am 99% sure it’s one of those insurance scams, I still feel the need to open it to check. Ugh!

By: Philip

Philip — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 16:15:33 +0000

All those offers and notices did get annoying. I know what they are now, but for a while I started reading trying to tell exactly who was offereing it and if it was of any benefit. The other problem is that I got so many of them I almost got rid of one I got in the mail yesterday, till I noticed it looked different and was actually a check for refund on some escrow!

Thanks for pointing out this info.