Details

The two bottom-left 2D sliders in the Demonstration permit you to zoom in on areas of interest. The first one lets you set the lowest interest rates and points to be examined. The second one lets you set the range of interest rates and points to be examined. These controls should be used with some care since you can become confused by zooming into areas in which no loans are available.

This Demonstration assumes that interest rates are fixed for the lifetime of the loan. Adjustable rate mortgages create additional complexities not addressed in this Demonstration.

This Demonstration ignores the tax consequences of both mortgage interest payments and investment income. It is intended to illustrate concepts involved in mortgage lending. Persons actually intending to borrow money to purchase real estate should consult financial professionals to determine which sort of loan products are best for them in light of taxation and other issues.

If the borrower's discount rate is less than the interest rate on a mortgage, the borrower would likely do better to prepay the mortgage than invest the funds. The mortgage interest rates thus generally set a floor on the sensible discount rates to use.

Tooltips are used throughout this Demonstration to help explain various controls and outputs.

Snapshot 1: if the underlying asset is held for a short period of time, the no points loan proves better than the high points loan, even though the latter has a lower interest rate.

Snapshot 2: if the underlying asset is held for a long period of time, the no points loan proves inferior to the high points loan.

Snapshot 3: the code underlying this Demonstration can handle a wide range of scenarios.