So I’m talking to my mortgage broker on the phone and my wife is talking in my other ear, and I’m trying to swallow what he, the mortgage broker is saying, while my wife is insisting we have to lower the payment.  She’s thinking strictly short term, he’s trying to close the deal, and I have my sites on the long run.  I need to see numbers.  I need to, well, I need WakefieldSoft’s LoanExpert Plus!

Loans aren’t one size fits all anymore.  The pros at WakefieldSoft recognize this and have packed tons of features into this easy to use, intuitive software.  It comes with a desktop version and a version for your pocket pc, smartphone or palm.  I chose the pocket pc version.  Look at figure 1, the desktop view:

Figure 1

You can name your mortgage scenario anything you want.  I named mine, "current mortgage."  I chose the amount of $100,000 for convenience.  This software is so intuitive I never needed help figuring it out.  Here I did a 30 year fixed mortgage at 6%.  Just fill in the numbers and at the payment square, press the "=" sign instead of filling out a number.  The software will calculate your payment.  You can figure it out with a down payment, you can change other parameters, like loan length in years, and you can put notes in at the bottom.  The additional inputs button lets you add in other things:

It’s pretty self explanatory.  Tax refers to your real-estate tax.  Many people prefer to amortize their taxes and insurance into their mortgages.  Want to see an amortization table?

You can export the table using comma or tab delimited files.  MS Excel accepts these, as do many other programs. 

Anything you can do on the desktop you can do on the pocket pc.  Check out the next screen capture:

Now the neat thing here is I’m doing a balloon loan.  It’s a 10 year interest free loan based on a 30 year fixed.  So after 10 years the loan has 20 years left and the payment goes from interest only to interest plus principal.  What’s stopping you from figuring out car lease payments?  Or equipment payments?  What if you buy any stereo or other stuff on terms and want to know the payments?  Here you go!  And you can save all your loan scenarios, then return to them later, then manipulate them again and again.

In summary, this program was so easy to use it was a pleasure.  The pocket pc version helped me negotiate a great deal with my mortgage broker and keep my marriage together!  I highly recommend it.  It’s available at the JAMM store for $24.99 and worth every penny.  The home page is www.wakefieldsoft.com.

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