EPortfolio Document Final
EPortfolio Document Final
EPortfolio Document Final
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Part I
Assume that you have found a home for sale and have agreed to a purchase price of
$296900.
− Nk
d(1 − (1 + r
k
) )
P0 =
( kr )
Assuming you make the monthly payment indicated above each month for 30 years
as , what will be the total amount repaid? Be sure to add cents to your answer.
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Find the total amount of interest paid over the 30 years. To do so, subtract the
amount originally borrowed from the total payments. Be sure to add cents to your
answer.
3/3 pts 99
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Part II
Using the mortgage payment you calculated in Part I, what minimum monthly take-
home pay (i.e. your monthly paychecks after taxes) should you earn in order to meet
this goal? In other words, your mortgage payment should be equal to 35% of your
monthly take-home pay.
It is also important to note that your net or take-home pay (after taxes) is less than
your gross pay (before taxes). Assuming that your net pay is 73% of your gross pay,
use your monthly take-home pay to �nd the minimum gross monthly salary will you
need to a�ord this house.
Now, calculate the minimum annual gross pay you will need to a�ord this house.
Do a search on the internet for the "average salary" of either your future
profession or your future college degree and compare it with your last answer. Make
a note of it as you will need to comment on it in the Re�ective Writing for this lab.
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Recall the original purchase price (you can click back to P art 1 if you need to).
To approximate the future value of an investment such as real estate, you will use
the compounded interest formula:
r Nk
PN = P0 (1 + )
k
This "Future value" is the price you will sell the house for after you've owned it for
ten years. Now you will answer the question of whether or not you have made or lost
money with this investment. You will need several pieces of information in order to
answer the question. You will need the amount of your down payment (from P art
1), the amount you paid toward the mortgage over ten years (your monthly payment
from Question 1 times the number of payments), and �nally, the amount of principal
you still owe on the mortgage.
To �nd the principal balance on the mortgage, you will use the Loan Formula:
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− Nk
d(1 − (1 + r
k
) )
P0 =
( kr )
(In this formula, d is the monthly payment and r is the annual interest rate
expressed as a decimal from Part I, so r = ; k = 12, and N is the number of years
on the loan.)
To determine whether or not you've made or lost money, you must compare the
"expenses" (down payment + mortgage paid + principal balance) to the "return"
(future value of the home).
Expenses = $ 479060.28
After 10 years, did you lose or gain money from selling the house? Answer:
gained
8/8 pts 99
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In this part of the lab you will examine the values associated with a 15 year
mortgage. You will use the same purchase price, down payment, and loan amount
from Question 1.
Typically, the annual interest rate on a 15 year loan is lower than on a 30 year loan.
Assume that you have found a 15 year loan with an annual interest rate of 4.875 % .
Express the annual interest rate as a decimal.
As you did for the 30 year mortgage in Question 1, compute the monthly payment
for the 15 year loan.
Again, use the loan formula to �nd the monthly payment, d. The loan formula is:
− Nk
d(1 − (1 + r
k
) )
P0 =
( kr )
Assuming you make the monthly payment each month for 15 years, what will be the
total amount repaid?
Find the total amount of interest paid over the 15 years. To do so, subtract the
amount originally borrowed from the total payments.
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Compare the total interest paid with this 15 year mortgage to the total interest paid
with the 30 year mortgage (from Question 1).
How much would you save in interest if you use the 15 year mortgage?
5/5 pts 99
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While using a 15 year mortgage saves you money on interest compared to the 30
year mortgage, the monthly payment for the 15 year loan is higher than the 30 year.
A good alternative is to use a 30 year loan, but to make extra payments toward the
principal. This approach gives the homeowner some �exibility (you can always pay
the minimum monthly payment if you can't pay the extra principal) but results in
saving money on interest and paying the loan o� quicker.
To see the e�ect of making extra principal payments, you'll need some information
from Part I.
Using the original loan amount, 30 year interest rate and monthly payment from Part
I, suppose that you pay an additional $100 a month toward principal. You will need
to �gure out how long it will take to pay o� the loan with this additional payment. In
order to do this, you will solve the following loan formula for N , which represents
:
d * (1 − (1 + r − 12N
12
) )
P0 = r
( 12 )
Where P0 is the original loan amount from Part I and d * is your 30-year monthly
payment plus the additional $100. (Note: This formula shown above assumes
k = 12 .
In order to solve the above equation for N you would use logarithms. Using the
notation log for the common logarithm, you would get the following formula:
log( 12d *
)
( 12d * − P0 r )
N = r
(12 log(1 + 12
))
Use the above formula, or the original formula to solve for N , the number of years it
will take to pay o� the loan with the additional $100 payment. Find N accurate to
two decimal places.
N = 25.3 years
To �nd the total interest paid you need to calculate the number of payments you
made. Use N , rounded o� to two decimal places and multiply by payments per
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year, 12). Then round the number of payments to the nearest since
you generally make complete payments.
Now you can �nd the total payments and the total interest paid. Don't forget to add
the additional $100 to your monthly payment before multiplying by the number of
payments.
Using the total interest paid from Part I, determine how much do you end up saving
in interest if you pay the additional $100 per month?
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Tia Howells
Reflective Writing for Mortgage Project
This lab was an experiment in doing the math to figure out, to a granular degree,
what will be paid to the loan servicer (and overall) for a home. We also covered the
standalone loan amount, the interest amounts for both 15 and 30-year mortgages, and
how much the monthly payments would be. I used percentage-to-decimal conversions,
logarithms, and the loan formula primarily to get through this assignment.
I do think this project shows how math can be applied in the real world, but I also
think to a certain degree that it highlights how needlessly difficult and inaccessible
things like homeownership have become to the general public–both from a cost
standpoint, and a logistics standpoint. This entire module felt like pulling teeth. That may
know for a fact that I’m not alone, and that the vast majority of people who aren’t a
mortgage broker by trade will likely not be able to benefit from the formulas we covered.
Even my husband, who works in IT is naturally very gifted at maths and science,
Another application for what was covered in this assignment is buying a car, but
more for the people selling the car than the person buying it. If the person buying the
car were capable enough at calculations to figure out to the smallest detail what they
would owe on the car they’re buying, it would benefit them and help them check the
dealership to obfuscate the true costs associated with owning that car. The same could
because your client would need to evaluate the costs associated with buying their
prospective home to ensure they could afford it. Knowing those details would be the
concept is a distant fantasy for most people under 40 trying to buy a house today.
The difference between the 30-year and 15-year loan essentially comes down to
the amount of the monthly payment, as that is the first and foremost thing a person
would need to evaluate when considering their expenses. For a person who is a little
more comfortable in their finances, it would be a good idea to pay more, because it
would save them interest on the total amount in the long run. For a person who is a little
less comfortable but still wants to own a home, their only choice would likely be a
30-year mortgage on which they’d pay significantly more in interest–and that would be
This assignment did not change my opinion of the usefulness of math. I knew
that there were real-life applications for it, as frustrating as that is for someone who has
a very hard time with numbers. It did, however, make me aware of how inaccessible
I’ve long since accepted that the degree I’m pursuing will not make me wealthy
or even financially comfortable. Most careers nowadays won’t do that for anyone, as
individuals in certain places would need to make upwards of $120,000 per year to get
by in the way that Americans were intended to. However, I’m not in this alone, and will
share a piece of land and a little house with my husband eventually. We will not be