One point costs 1% of your mortgage amount (or $1,000 for every $100,000). Essentially, you pay some interest upfront in exchange for a lower interest rate over the life of your loan. In general, the longer you plan to own the home, the more points help you save on interest over the life of the loan. For example, Bank of America, Better Money Habits, uses a chart illustrating points using a loan amount of $200,000. It’s possible to buy the points to ensure the interest rates are low when you’re getting the loan. Buying the points can help you down the line by guaranteeing that you save money, especially if you plan to stay in the house for an extended period. However, the amount of cash you’ll save by buying the points depends on the number of points you buy. For instance, if your mortgage is $200,000 and you buy two points, you will owe $4,000 when closing. Further related to taxes and property ownership is that once you own a house, you’re a property owner, with the attendant obligation to pay property taxes. The usual method of paying property taxes and homeowner insurance is to set up an escrow account. The term escrow is when the mortgage servicer will deposit part of your monthly mortgage payment into an account specifically set up to pay your taxes and homeowners insurance as they come due. This process takes the burden off of you for coming up with a large sum of money once or twice a year. When buying a house, your lender will calculate the total amount of real estate taxes, as well as the number of days in a property tax year that you were the owner of the said property and escrow that amount, adding it to the mortgage payment.
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