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		Home Page Mortgage News You Can Use Home Is Where The Heart Is Part Two The money handed over to the bank during the life of a mortgage in the form of interest payments is usually the biggest expense (not counting that two-story, seven-room addition, of course). On a $200,000, 30-year fixed rate mortgage at 6 percent, for example, the total interest payment over the life of the loan would be $231,676. If the homeowner put down a 20 percent deposit when buying, that home would actually end up costing $471,676 rather than its $240,000 price tag, or roughly twice as much. And historically speaking, 6 percent is a bargain interest rate. But interest payments are tax-deductible. Mortgage interest payments are lopped off gross income for federal tax purposes, which is a substantial benefit of homeownership and the biggest tax break for which most Americans are eligible. Homeownership costs also include maintenance and improvements. According to Harvard University's Joint Center for Housing Studies, American homeowners spent an average of $2,000 a year in 2001 on home improvements, for an annual national total of some $140 billion. They spent about $500 a year on maintenance, for an annual bill of about $34 billion. In parts of the country that have many older homes, such as the Washington area, even more is spent on maintenance, said Kermit Baker, director of the Remodeling Futures Program at the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies. Consider Sarah Wittig's case. In 2001, Wittig bought a three-bedroom, two-bath house built in 1952 in the Columbia Pines neighborhood of Annandale. "Then the renovations began," Wittig said. The first project she tackled was ripping out the fireplace. Then she renovated one of her bathrooms. During the bathroom renovation, she found that many of the walls in her house were not level -- a hallway wall, for example, stuck out half an inch on one end -- making any work harder and more costly. But that was all minor, compared with what happened last weekend. "I had a huge flood," Wittig said. "It was totally unexpected and I have yet to figure out the cause or the origination of it." Wittig said that several hundred gallons of water came pouring through an ash-collecting vent in her basement, inundating the basement with water and ruining furniture and rugs. "I'm so frazzled," said Wittig, a lawyer who owns her home by herself. "I thought I'd lose my mind. I mopped and mopped and used my dryer to spin my towels over and over again. I gave up at 2:30 a.m." Wittig said she is worried that correcting the problem -- and fixing the damage -- will run into the thousands of dollars, money she does not have to spare. So would she buy that house again if she could do it all over? "If prices hadn't gone up so much, I probably would have felt . . . I shouldn't have," Wittig said. She said the fact her house has risen significantly in value has balanced out some of the problems she has had and the money she has spent.   Back to Original Article: News You Can Use   Continue with: Home Is Where The Heart Is Part Three Home Is Where The Heart Is Part Four Finance: Election Year Investing Finance: Election Year Investing Part Two
		Bad Credit Mortgage Refinance