Prepay Mortgage or Invest, Newly Released Calculator Provides Answer, Says MIFSP
Atlanta --
Apr 9, 2008 --
For Immediate Release
The Mortgage Prepay Equivalent Yield™ (MPEY™) calculator, just released by the Mortgage Institute For Financial Services Professionals, Inc. (www.mifsp.org), finally answers the age-old question of whether to prepay a mortgage or invest. “People commonly make improper risk comparisons and improper tax calculations when comparing prepaying a mortgage to investment alternatives. The MPEY™ (pronounced MPAY) calculator provides an objective measure of the value of prepaying a mortgage that can be used for comparison to alternative uses. It sets a new standard in financial planning that should be a key disclosure for anyone recommending or selling financial products to homeowners,” says Leon Morris, RMP®, ChFC, CLU, Executive Director of MIFSP.
MIFSP is set to release another innovative calculator, the Homeownership Tax Benefits™ (HTB™) calculator, which calculates an overlooked tax benefit of homeownership that’s worth at least four times more than the mortgage interest deduction. “With the HTB™ calculator, we not only correct all the wrongs we identified during our testing of hundreds of online ‘rent versus buy’ calculators that are made available to consumers by banks, Ginnie Mae, HUD, Freddie Mac,and the U.S. Financial Literacy and Education Commission, but we’re the first to successfully capture the total tax benefits of homeownership, which extend well beyond a mortgage. The MPEY™ and HTB™calculators let you see in dollars and cents the value of either reducing or increasing residential home equity. These calculators take guesswork and speculation out of decisions to pay down, pay off or even increase one’s mortgage balance,” says Morris.
Up to now, the MPEY™ calculator was only available to Residential Mortgage Planner® professionals. However, the HTB™ and MPEY™ calculators will now be released to all professional users for a subscription fee, and for a short time, MIFSP is offering both calculators directly to consumers. “To make better decisions, people need better information, and we’ve found a way to quantify highly valuable information that homeowners and investors need to know,” says Morris.
About MIFSP:MIFSP provides research, education and consultation services to the mortgage and financial services industry and offers the only educational program in Mortgage BasedTM Financial Planning. Leon Morris is the author of the books Managing Your Mortgage to Financial Independence and The Book On Mortgage Planning.
