Why does the housing expenditues report show a lower total than the data I entered for taxes, insurance, maintenance and morgage payments? Is it trying to separate mortgage interest from mortgage principal? If so, how does it know the interest rate I'm payng?
Disclaimer: ESPlannerBASIC, ESPlanner, ESPlannerPLUS and ESPlannerPRO, are educational calculators designed to give users input in mapping out financial futures, but should not be acted upon as a complete financial plan. The creators of these programs are not certified, registered, authorized, or any other type of financial planners. These programs are simply tools for helping you think through economic futures. Its "recommendations" should be viewed as informative inputs into your own decision-making with respect to saving and the purchase of life insurance. ESPlannerBASIC, ESPlanner, ESPlannerPLUS and ESPlannerPRO provide neither economic, financial nor tax advice, which can only be delivered to you by authorized professionals.
RSS
If you look at the Housing Report in the Detail spredsheet (or in the PDF), you'll see that your total housing expenditure is the sum of mortgage, prop tax, main and condo fee, and insurance.
Recall that you tell the program your monthly payment and the years to payoff. Keep in mind also that the reports are all showing today's dollars, so a "fixed" interest rate is lower each year because of the impact of inflation.
I hope that helps,
Dan
I don't understand your answer. The data I entered is for the current housing expenditures in the first year of the report, 2008. Inflation hasn't occured yet. Why aren't the totals the same on the report for that year?
I believe what you are seeing is the impact of inflation on one year. The program doesn't know that it's July or Oct. or November etc. It assumes the whole year and that you are seeing the impact of inflation on one year.
The program does annual accounting, not monthly.
In other words, if you changed inflation to zero in your Assumptions area of the program, then you'd see the total mortgage / 12 equal to your exact monthly payment.
Make sense?
Dan