Imagine a mortgage calculator so comprehensive that the least expensive route to home ownership becomes tangible before a commitment is made; a mortgage calculator that can calculate beyond down payment, monthly payments, rates and amortization length.
Thanks to the Canadian Mortgage Calculator created by Jon Wittwer, this ability has become accessible to all prospective Canadian homebuyers with an Internet connection and Excel. Wittwer’s mortgage calculators actually take into consideration potential tax deductions mortgage interest can generate, and the lump sum payments you might make along the way.
Dr. Wittwer started creating financial calculators while working on his PhD in mechanical engineering at the Brigham Young University in the United States. The process of purchasing his first home prompted the engineer to begin building them for mortgage inquiries.
In 2003, the Montana-raised academic launched the website where they became available to the public, free of charge, Vertex42.com .
Now home shoppers, mortgagors approaching renewal, those seeking vehicle or other loans, people wishing to pay down debts, or those wishing to budget more effectively can utilize the calculators available on Wittwer’s site.
Dr. Wittwer’s Home Mortgage Calculator can also be applied to Canadian mortgages, as it allows the user to choose semi-annual compounding. This calculator takes into consideration interest payments that will be returned if tax-deductible, any extra payments you may make throughout a term, and the balance left over at the end of a specified number of years.
Users may experiment with different rates, fixed or variable, and various term lengths, amortization periods and loan amounts. The mortgage calculator will do the rest of the math, and work, for you. The downloads on these calculators are free; one just needs have Microsoft Excel® 2002(XP), 2003, or 2007, 2010 installed on their computers.
According to the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) the majority of first-time homebuyers in Canada utilize mortgage calculators prior to selecting a lender or broker for their mortgage, and the vast majority of these property shoppers find them helpful.
Dr. Wittwer recently launched the Vertex42 blog, an effort to answer questions and offer more information to people using the calculators and templates available on his Vertex42 site.
“I think I’ve caught the entrepreneurial spirit, but I can also see myself returning to academia some day,” he says. “For now, I’m enjoying the process of creating useful tools that help people learn and make important decisions.”
