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Making the wrong moves with your mortgage can cost you.
Key points
- A mortgage is the largest debt most people take on.
- Mistakes with your mortgage could be costly, and could even lead to foreclosure.
- Not shopping around is just one common mistake would-be borrowers need to avoid.
If you’re buying a home, chances are good you’ll be getting a mortgage along with it. Mortgages are large debts with long repayment timelines, so you can end up paying a lot of interest and dealing with your mortgage lender for many years.
As a result, if you’re buying a home in 2022, there are a few crucial mistakes you absolutely want to avoid when securing your home loan. Here’s what they are.
1. Borrowing more than you can afford
Taking out too large of a home loan could quickly turn into a financial disaster. You’re going to be working on paying off your mortgage every month for decades.
If you’ve borrowed too large a sum, you’re going to be under constant financial pressure and may need to make sacrifices that are unsustainable. A single financial blip could also put you at serious risk of foreclosure, which could lead to financial devastation.
2. Taking out a mortgage you don’t understand
Many mortgage loans have simple terms. If you take out a fixed-rate mortgage, you’ll know upfront exactly what your monthly payments and total costs will be. But other loans, such as adjustable-rate mortgages or balloon mortgages, can be far riskier and can come with uncertain costs.
You never want to be surprised with a mortgage payment you can’t afford, so be sure you understand exactly how your loan works. This means you should know whether the rate or payment can change over time, what you’ll need to pay upfront to get the loan, and how much your loan will cost you each month and during the total payoff period.
There are many different kinds of mortgages and tons of different lenders offering home loans. As a result, a loan from one lender could potentially be much cheaper and easier to qualify for than a loan from another.
If you don’t shop around for a mortgage loan and compare offers that are made by a variety of lenders, you could end up with a …….
