A 40 year mortgage is a risky move, but not a horrible one at all. Some say there are better options available and there are, but how much risk are you willing to take on? This mortgage option is actually a very good idea because you can add principal to the mortgage if you want to.
Everyone knows that the faster you pay off a loan the cheaper it ends up being because of all the interest going to the bank. Try using a mortgage calculator to do all the math yourself.
http://www.thefreemortgagecalculator.com/
There was an article discussing the better options such as a 5/1 ARM rate mortgage. You will pay off a lot more principal over 5 years and also have a lower mortgage payment. What they neglected to tell you was that you risk your interest rate jumping up as much as 2% after those 5 years. The mortgage payment was cheaper by about $55 per month based on a 200,000 loan. If you interest rate jumped 2% then your new mortgage payment for the next month would be $254.00 higher then it was.
With and adjustable rate your payment can jump 2% per year and a total of 6% over all. In this economy right now it would be a terrible idea to opt into any adjustable rate mortgage because of the high risk low reward. Interest rates are so low that they can't go much lower anyways so what's the point?
http://www.thefreemortgagecalculator.com/
You can check the current interest rates on my website. You can also use the different mortgage calculators I have available for free to help you with your mortgage payment.
