Mortgage Calculator

Welcome to our Mortgage Calculator mini website. Here you find what we believe are the best mortgage calculators on the Internet. Here you will also find a directory which consists of all those sites which provide free-to-use mortgage calculators. So if the mortgage calculators we provide here do not suit your needs, we provide a source of others in which you can select. Here we also provide a short discussion about the home mortgage situation, a chat room about mortgages and related topics, and current news about the home mortgage industry. We also provide a book store with a very large selection of books solely about the home mortgage. So if you are seeking a mortgage for a new home, or are seeking refinancing for a current home, this mini website should be helpful.

Between 2001 and 2005, the United States, and the world for that matter, saw an increase in home prices. This has been known as the “housing bubble”. The housing bubble in the United States was actually made up of localized “housing bubbles”, and now these areas have seen a correction. So when we talk about a housing bubble, we are really talking about localized housing bubbles that took place across the United States. Factors that contributed to the “housing bubble” were historically low interests rates, poor lending practices, and basically a mad rush to buy homes.

In 2005 a correction in inflated home prices started to take place. The booming housing market seem to stop suddenly around the end of the summer of 2005. In 2006, the market continued to slow down, home sale prices continued to fall, and we started to see an increase in the home inventory. In 2007, home sales continued to fall.

We are currently in a housing financial crisis which most likely will only get worse. Foreclosures are a symptom of a housing crisis which has it’s root cause in the fact that banks and mortgage companies were providing home loans to individuals who really were not qualified to receive them in the first place. These type loans, referred to as subprime loans, has resulted in the financial crisis the United States is currently in. Subprime lending took place due to government deregulation, and basic greed displayed by banks and other lenders. Poor lending practices has led to a Wall Street crisis where firms have gone down. This Wall Street crisis has resulted in a Main Street crisis. We see that it is harder for companies to get business loans. Companies need to tighten their belts which means employee lay offs and decrease hiring. This has resulted in a down turn in the economy in the United States.

What we now see today is a tightening of the belt for the banks and loan companies. What does this all mean to you as a potential home buyer. It means that today it is more difficult to qualify for a loan to buy a house. But if you do qualify, you should be able to find a home where the price is lower then what it was during the “housing bubble”, when home prices were inflated. The correction in home prices started to take place in 2005, and know one really knows how long the correction will last.

What is certain is that the home prices are dropping, and that the drop is occurring more so in some areas of the country compared to others. Is it a good time to buy a home? Given the localization of the “housing bubble” that is taking place, it really depends on what area of the country you are talking about. The following is a map of those areas of the country which have seen inflated home prices, or what many refer to as localized “housing bubbles”.

Mortgage Calculator - Inflation adjusted home price appreciation in the United States of America, 1998-2006

Home prices measured by Home Price Index as published by Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight

Now compare the following map to the one above, and you can see the areas of the country where the real estate bubble has burst. The map above shows real estate appreciation. Fast forward to the current real estate situation, and the map below shows those areas of the country where real estate values have dropped. Many areas of the country that had an increase in value, have had a drop in value over the past couple years. So indeed, a localized bursting of bubbles has taken place.

The prudent home buyer should talk to several Realtors within their local area in order to get a feel in terms of whether a local correction is taking place. If a local correction is taking place, the wiser choice would be to watch and wait to see if prices will drop further.

If you want to buy a home today, you need to throughly do your home work, and part of that home work is to determine whether or not you can afford the mortgage payment. Calculating what your mortgage will be should be your starting point if you are thinking about buying a home. The mortgage calculator tools we provide here are the most popular tools used by Realtors. These tools are designed to help you evaluate the components that factor into buying a home and getting a mortgage.