Pay the house off sooner, honestly.
107 cited ways to put more money on the principal without paying more out of your paycheck, 34 sequences that stack them, a strategy finder and a payoff calculator. Every number comes from what you type. Nothing here is guaranteed.
Thirty years in five?
It can be done, but only when big one-time money or large new cash flow lands on the principal. At 6.5%, a five-year payoff needs a payment about 3.1 times the 30-year payment. See the math, the thirty-nine strategies built for it, and the honest odds.
How it works
1. Keep the payment the same
The amount paid from income stays where it is. Every strategy finds extra principal somewhere else.
2. Find the money
From assets you own, new cash flow, a lower cost on the same debt, a partner, or family. Borrowing only moves debt, and is marked that way.
3. Measure it
Put each strategy's amount into the calculator. It checks every answer two independent ways before showing it.
Where the extra principal comes from
- From an asset you already own: 28 strategies
- From new cash flow, not your paycheck: 42 strategies
- From a lower cost of the same debt: 30 strategies
- From selling a share of the home's future value: 1 strategies
- From borrowing against another asset (moves the debt, does not erase it): 6 strategies
How predictable each one is
- Most predictable: 38 strategies. once in place, the payoff date is arithmetic
- Depends on people or program rules: 48 strategies. Depends on people or program rules (tenants, family, IRS records, lenders)
- Depends on markets or variable rates: 21 strategies. Depends on markets or variable rates
Left out on purpose
- Opening many credit cards or home equity lines at once to fund the payoff (credit stacking). It can mislead lenders and multiplies the risk to the home.
- Pledging an annuity as collateral. It can be taxed as a distribution and puts the contract's guarantees at risk.
- Hard-money or private bridge loans to pay off a home you live in. They are short, high-rate loans with a balloon at the end, built for investors with a planned sale, and they can cost the home.
- 401(k) loans to pay down a mortgage. Leaving the job can make the loan due quickly or turn it into a taxable distribution, and the money stops growing.
- Any plan sold as "guaranteed" mortgage payoff. Nothing here is guaranteed; the most predictable strategies are marked as such.