One negative aspect of 40-year mortgages is the fact that you end up paying more interest over this extended period of time. More interest means that you pay more for the same house than if you had gotten a 15 or 30-year mortgage instead. This could result in you paying immense amounts of money unnecessarily, especially if you only making minimal payments each month. With a traditional 30-year mortgage, it will take quite a while before you begin to notice that your payments are actually decreasing the principal. With a 40-year mortgage, it will take even longer, unfortunately.

With a 40-year mortgage, since you are making a tremendous amount of payments compared to other types of mortgages, your equity will build a lot slower than usual. This is due to the fact that you will be paying so little on the actual principal each month, since the payments are spread out over such an extended period with this type of mortgage. If your goal is to build equity as quickly as possible then a 40-year mortgage may not be for you. Alternately, you could build equity quicker by making extra mortgage payments on the actual principal, but you would have to pay a substantial amount on a regular basis, which you may be unwilling or unable to do.

The only reason that you should even consider getting a 40-yeard mortgage is if you are absolutely certain that it's going to be only temporary. You don't want to pay a great deal of extra money over a 40-year time frame just to be able to pay lower monthly payments. If your only reason for choosing a 40-year mortgage is to keep your monthly payment lower and more affordable, there are other ways of achieving this goal. Perhaps you could make sure that your credit is A-1 before even applying for a mortgage. This would enable you to take advantage of the lowest interest rates possible, which would make your payments a lot lower than if you had shaky credit.

Another way that you could make sure that your monthly payments are as low as possible instead of getting a 40-year mortgage is if you make a larger down payment. Of course this may not always be possible, and if it isn't, there are other options. There are special government programs that will provide assistance with down payments, which would enable you to make lower payments each month without struggling to make a huge down payment. By checking online on sites like HUD and similar government agencies you should be able to locate programs and find out if you're qualified to apply for any type of assistance.

If for some reason you don't qualify for any of the government programs or grants, you may still have a few options for keeping your monthly payment low instead of getting a 40-year mortgage. You could wait until you have a substantial down payment saved up before even purchasing a home. Of course if you're anxious to buy your own home and can get approved immediately, you may not want to wait years before you'll have an adequate down payment. If you don't want to wait, perhaps you have family or close friends who could possibly lend you money for a down payment so that you have purchase a home with a lot better terms than 40 years.

If you have absolutely no choice but to choose a 40-year mortgage then you should attempt to refinance after a year or two. As long as you make your payments on time each month, you should be able to get approved for a much better mortgage during the refinancing of the loan. If the first offer that you receive doesn't sound great and you've kept your mortgage payments up faithfully, as well as your other financial obligations, such as credit cards, you should shop around until you locate a better deal. The bottom line is: don't agree to a 40-year mortgage unless you're fully aware of everything involved and don't plan on keeping it for an extended period of time.