( 3 reviews )
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( 2 of 2 found this review helpful ) Posted: Feb 26 2007
This book may have saved me thousands of dollars. My own lawyer did a closing on a property I bought using a private lender. Everyone involved said the payment would be $1375.95. We went through the closing, recorded all the paper work, it was a done deal, until I looked it up in this book. The real payment was $1353.80. The eight bux I paid for this book is a lot cheaper than an extra $22.15 per month for the next 30 years!!!!
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( 14 of 39 found this review helpful ) Posted: Mar 14 2000
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I mean, who doesn't like to look at mortgage amortization tables? Me and my family like to sit around and quiz each other by saying stuff like "What is the monthly payment on a 30 year fixed interest mortgage of $135,000 at 8.25%?" We've even set it up in "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" format with lifelines and what have you and we have a real blast!When we want to take a break, we just pull out the book on the calculation of Pi to 150,000 places and see who can recite the farthest. Then we have a group hug!
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( 33 of 34 found this review helpful ) Posted: Jan 30 2000
You may not use it often, but this book will come in very handy when planning to borrow money. I've been an investment professional since 1988, and this is the most borrowed book on my shelf. I also owned the previous edition, and this version has been improved with the inclusion of rates down to 2% and the expansion of loan amounts to $300,000 in the primary table.The book is conveniently organized in four tables, ordered from most-commonly to least-commonly used (as it happens, largest to smallest). Table 1 (monthly amortization) is where everyone spends the most time. Just turn to the interest rate page, then read across for "loan amount" and down for "years in term," and you've got your monthly payment to the penny. For non-round numbered loan amounts, you can avoid having to interpolate by grabbing a calculator and turning to Table 2 (required payments for monthly, quarterly, etc.), where you can look up the multiplier (per $1000) corresponding to the rate and term of a given loan (yep, that's how your mortgage lender does the math). Less frequently used are loan progress charts and proration data, Tables 3 and 4, respectively.This book is straightforward, convenient, and travels well. My favorite of its kind.
