Mortgage Calculator Shows True Colors
Today, like every Monday, I got my newsletter from Mr. Internet (aka Michael Russer) and glanced over the contents to see what interesting tidbits it might hold. The first entry had "elegance" and "mortgage calculator" in close proximity to each other, something you don't see every day. Mr. Internet usually doesn't write about things unless he's at least somewhat impressed by them, so I figured I had nothing to lose by checking out the widget he was touting. Intrigued, I clicked through to the web site to read the post, and I'm glad I did.
The post described a rather mundane looking mortgage calculator widget (see screen shot below). Now, most mortgage calculators have mundane as a middle name, so I wasn't surprised that this one did, too. I noticed that it not only had a tab for mortgages, but one for other loans as well, which I thought was a nice touch. Mr. Internet said he had scoured the Internet looking for a calculator that would complement your web site instead of look all frumpy and...well, mundane. This one, he said, is the one. So, in his words, a demo is worth a thousand words, so go ahead, go to the mortgage calculator web site, enter some numbers in the preview calculator and press "Calculate". We'll wait...
Here's what you saw (or something similar):
Pretty cool, huh? Not only does the pop-up color graph look nice, you can mouse over it to get specific info about the loan at various spots in its time line. It'll give you how much principal you have left, as well as interest, taxes insurance and PMI. And the running balance of your balance owed is pretty nice, too.
All in all, it's a step above the other calculators I've seen and would be a nice addition to a real estate blog or web site. You can get the code for it here, and it comes in two sizes, 150 pixels or 300 pixels wide, depending on your sidebar width. There's also a mortgage rate widget there which does tricks similar to the calculator, so you can avail yourself of that if you desire, as well, although Mr. Internet says to ignore it.
Anyway, much obliged to Mr. Internet for pointing this snazzy little calculator out, and we hope you enjoy it - even though it is a rather unexciting subject!
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