Monthly mortgage payment

 The formula of the monthly mortgage payments for a fixed-rate loan can be found online as \begin{equation} M = P\frac{r(1+r)^n}{(1+r)^n-1}\,,\tag{1}\end{equation} where

  •  M is the mortgage payment.  
  • P is the principal, i.e., the initial amount borrowed. 
  • r is the monthly interest rate. For annual interest rate 2.5\%, r=2.5\% / 12.
  • n is the number of payments. For 30-years fixed rate mortgage, n=30 * 12 = 360.
Here we provide a derivation of the above formula. Let b_i be the owned balance in the i-th month. Initially, b_0=P and we choose the constant monthly payment M such that b_n=0. We then have the recursion relation between two consecutive month as \begin{equation}b_{i+1}=b_i(1+r) - M\,.\tag{2}\end{equation}

A trick to solve (2) is to write Eq. (2) into the following form \begin{equation}b_{i+1}+C = \left(b_i+C\right)(1+r)\,,\tag{3}\end{equation} so that b_i+C is a geometric sequence: \begin{equation}b_i + C = (b_0 + C) (1+r)^i\,.\end{equation} Note that b_0=P and b_n=0, we thus have the equation \begin{equation} C = (P+C) (1+r)^n\,,\end{equation} from which we can solve \begin{equation}C= \frac{P(1+r)^n}{(1+r)^n-1}\,.\end{equation}

Finally, by comparing Eq. (2) and (3), we know that M=Cr, which then has the same form as Eq. (1).


After proving the formula (1), let's do a simple exercise. Suppose the 30-years fixed rate mortgage rate is 2.5\% and the loan amount is P_1. For exactly the same monthly mortgage payments, what is the new loan amount P_2 when the 30-years fixed rate mortgage rate is increased to 6.0\%?

Using Eq. (1), for the same M, we have the relation \begin{equation} \frac{P_2}{P_1} = \frac{r_1 (1 + r_1)^n}{r_2 (1 + r_2)^n}\frac{(1 + r_2)^n-1}{ (1 + r_1)^n-1}\,.\end{equation} The surprise is the final numerical result: after submitting r_1=2.5\%/12 and r_2=6.0\%/12, we can calculate \begin{equation} \frac{P_2}{P_1} = 0.659\,.\end{equation} The new loan amount is only two thirds of the old loan amount after the interest rate increases!


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

529 Plan

How to offset W2 tax

Retirement Accounts