5
Loan Project: Buying a House
For this assignment, you will analyze, interpret, and evaluate a home mortgage loan using appropriate technological tools.

Find a description, asking price, and real estate taxes of a house for sale, and decide on a purchase price you would be willing to pay (assuming you have the means). Find a current market interest rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage having a down payment of 20 percent of the purchase price.
Compute the down payment, amount financed, and the monthly mortgage payment (showing how to use the appropriate financial formula and showing the calculations).
Compute the monthly amount of real estate taxes and add to the monthly mortgage payment to get the total monthly amount paid.
Suppose that in order to qualify for the loan, the total monthly amount paid cannot exceed 30 percent of monthly income. What is the minimum monthly income needed to qualify for the loan? What is the minimum annual income needed? (Note: This is a simplified minimum income requirement calculation, for the purposes of this project, as it does not take into account other costs such as insurance or other loans or assets currently held.)
Construct an amortization table (using spreadsheet software or online resources such as http://www.bankrate.com/calculators/mortgages/mortgage-calculator.aspx).
Referring to your amortization table, state the month and year of the first payment. Find the date of the first month when the amount applied to the principal exceeds the amount of interest paid. How many of the 360 payments have been made at this point?
Calculate the unpaid balance after 22 years, rounded to the nearest dollar (showing how to apply the appropriate financial formula and showing the calculations). What percentage of the amount financed is still unpaid? Note: You should check your answer for the unpaid balance by consulting your amortization table, but you must show how to calculate the value in your project.
Assuming that the mortgage is held for the full 30 years, compute the total principal paid and the total interest paid.
Conclusion: Write a summary describing the results, particularly those you found to be most interesting, and why.