Eight loan programmes, read as a cut section through thirty years.
Most lenders hand you eight boxes and ask which one you are. Plinth turns the problem on its side: every programme is a stack of layers, and what separates them is when each layer stops being charged. Start with the year you care about.
We publish no rates, no approval odds and no closing times. This is a design demonstration; every dollar figure on it is labelled illustrative where it appears.
Scroll down and you are going forward in time. The programmes that decide something at each depth surface there, and nowhere else — so you never meet all eight at once.
Day one · What you hand over
Day one
What you hand over
How much do I need, and what am I charged once?
Everything that happens exactly once: the down payment, the one-time programme fees, the points you did or did not buy, and the closing costs. Four of the eight programmes are separated from each other almost entirely by what happens in this band.
Past the horizon you set. On your own timeline you probably never reach this band.
FHA charges an upfront mortgage insurance premium of 1.75% of the base loan amount. It can be financed into the loan.
The USDA Guaranteed programme charges an upfront guarantee fee, currently 1% of the loan amount. USDA sets it each fiscal year.
VA charges a one-time funding fee that varies with the down payment and whether it is a first or a later use. It is waived for veterans receiving compensation for a service-connected disability, and for certain surviving spouses.
A discount point costs 1% of the loan amount and buys a lower rate. Whether it is worth it is a question about how long you keep the loan, which is the next four bands.
Your Loan Estimate has to reach you within three business days of a complete application. Your Closing Disclosure has to be in your hands at least three business days before you sign.
The early band is about temporary things: mortgage insurance, an adjustable rate that has not adjusted yet, an escrow account that has not settled. Almost nobody reads the schedule on which these end, and it is the single largest difference between two loans that look identical on the rate sheet.
Past the horizon you set. On your own timeline you probably never reach this band.
Conventional borrower-paid PMI is not permanent. Under the Homeowners Protection Act you can request cancellation at 80% of the original value, and the servicer must terminate it automatically at 78%, if payments are current.
FHA annual MIP is different. On a 30-year loan with less than 10% down it runs for the life of the loan. Put 10% or more down and it drops off after 11 years.
USDA charges an annual fee, currently 0.35% of the average scheduled balance, for the life of the loan.
VA charges no monthly mortgage insurance at all. That is the structural difference, not the rate.
An adjustable rate loan is fixed for its first period, then adjusts inside caps written into your note. The caps are the product, not the teaser.
Most mortgages are ended long before their term, by a sale or a refinance. That makes the break-even question the most useful one on the whole site, and it is the reason this band sits in the middle of the page rather than in a footnote. Everything you paid on day one is only worth it if you are still here when it pays back.
Past the horizon you set. On your own timeline you probably never reach this band.
Buying points, paying a higher rate for a lender credit, and refinancing are all the same arithmetic: an amount now against a saving per month. Divide one by the other and you get the month it pays back.
A refinance restarts the amortisation clock. A lower payment on a longer schedule can cost more in total interest even at a lower rate.
Refinancing your principal residence gives you a three business day right to rescind under the Truth in Lending Act. A purchase does not.
If you have an FHA loan there is a Streamline refinance with reduced documentation and usually no appraisal. If you have a VA loan there is the IRRRL, with a reduced funding fee.
Conventional cash-out refinances are generally limited to 80% of the value of the home.
By this depth the balance has fallen and, in most markets, the value has not. That combination unlocks a set of options that simply were not available earlier, and closes off others. This is also where an extra hundred dollars a month has done something you can see.
Past the horizon you set. On your own timeline you probably never reach this band.
A HELOC is a revolving line secured by your home, with a draw period and then a repayment period. The rate is usually variable, and the payment changes when the draw period ends.
A home equity loan is the other shape: one lump sum, a fixed rate, a fixed schedule.
Both sit behind your first mortgage. If you cannot pay, the home is the collateral, exactly as it is for the first lien.
Extra principal payments do not reduce next month’s bill. They shorten the schedule. A recast, where the lender re-amortises the remaining balance, is the thing that lowers the payment - ask whether your loan allows one.
Conventional PMI is normally gone by now on a loan that started at 5% down and has been paid on schedule.
15–30 yr · Where the interest stops being the story
15–30 yr
Where the interest stops being the story
What does the far end of this actually look like?
On a 30-year schedule the early payments are mostly interest and the late ones are mostly principal. The crossover is later than nearly everyone expects. Looking at this band before you sign is the cheapest thing you will ever do, and it is why the amortisation schedule is a page on this site and not a footnote.
Past the horizon you set. On your own timeline you probably never reach this band.
On a level-payment loan every payment is the same size, but the split inside it moves month by month from interest towards principal.
A 15-year term costs more per month and dramatically less in total interest, because the balance it charges interest on falls so much faster.
The last payment on a 30-year loan is almost entirely principal. The first is almost entirely interest.
Nothing about this band depends on which programme you chose. Amortisation is arithmetic, and it is the same arithmetic for FHA, VA, USDA, conventional and jumbo.
A jumbo loan is simply one larger than the conforming limit that the Federal Housing Finance Agency publishes each year, so it is priced and underwritten by the lender rather than by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.
A cut face reads its own history in order, and so does a mortgage. Everything on this page is that diagram, applied to eight loan programmes.
One house, five structures
The same purchase, put together five ways
$420,000, a thirty year term, and five different sets of rules. The monthly numbers land close together. What separates them is what happens on day one and the year the extra charge stops.
Conventional, 5% down
C
Cash down
$21,000
Amount financed
$399,000
Principal & interest
$2,522/mo
Insurance or fee
$183/mo
On day one: No programme fee at closing.
Every month: Private mortgage insurance until the balance reaches 78% of $420,000.
Stops: month 135 — year 12
The insurance is temporary by law, and the law names the date.
Conventional, 20% down
C
Cash down
$84,000
Amount financed
$336,000
Principal & interest
$2,124/mo
Insurance or fee
—
On day one: No programme fee, and no mortgage insurance at all.
Every month: None. Twenty per cent down is what removes it, not what is required.
Stops: never charged
Four times the cash on day one buys $183 a month and about $398 of payment.
FHA, 3.5% down
F
Cash down
$14,700
Amount financed
$412,393
Principal & interest
$2,607/mo
Insurance or fee
$189/mo
On day one: An upfront premium of 1.75% — $7,093 — financed into the loan, so it earns interest for thirty years.
Every month: Annual MIP charged monthly for the life of the loan below 10% down.
Stops: never — only refinancing out of FHA ends it
The most forgiving door in the building, and the one with the most persistent charge behind it.
VA, nothing down
V
Cash down
$0
Amount financed
$429,030
Principal & interest
$2,712/mo
Insurance or fee
—
On day one: A one-time funding fee of 2.15% — $9,030 — financed here, and waived entirely for veterans receiving compensation for a service-connected disability.
Every month: None. Not upfront, not monthly.
Stops: never charged
No monthly mortgage insurance is a structural advantage that never appears on a rate comparison.
USDA, nothing down
U
Cash down
$0
Amount financed
$424,200
Principal & interest
$2,681/mo
Insurance or fee
$124/mo
On day one: A guarantee fee of 1% — $4,200 — financed into the loan.
Every month: An annual fee of 0.35% collected monthly for the life of the loan.
Stops: never, while the loan lasts
Only if the address passes USDA’s map and the household passes the income ceiling. Both are hard tests.
Every figure here is illustrative. The rate is an assumed 6.5% and the private mortgage insurance rate an assumed 0.55% a year; the programme fees are the published ones. Nothing on this card is a quote or an offer.
The things a lending site usually shows, and why these are missing
A rate. A rate you have not been underwritten for is a guess with a decimal point. Every figure here is labelled illustrative and the assumptions are printed beside it.
Star ratings and review counts. This is a demonstration. It has no customers, so it has no reviews, and inventing them would be the one thing on a lending site that is genuinely unforgivable.
An NMLS number or a state licence list. Plinth is not a lender. Making up an identifier that maps to a real registry would be worse than leaving it out.
A closing-time promise. Nobody can promise one before they have seen a file, an appraisal and a title report.
Lender logos as partners. No real institution has anything to do with this site.
A countdown, a rate alert or an urgency banner. The horizon control is the only thing on this page that changes what you see, and you control it.
Decorative: a shallower sediment field settling behind the closing panel.
Start with a question, not an application.
No form on this site transmits anything. Ask what you actually want to know, and take the answer somewhere real.
Plinth Home Lending is a design demonstration. The company, the address, the phone number and the email domain are invented. No licence, NMLS identifier, rate, approval or timeline on this site is real, and no form on it transmits or stores anything.
Reading controls
These are real controls, not a badge. This site has not been audited against WCAG, so it does not claim conformance.
What this site stores
No cookies, no analytics, no tags and no third-party scripts. Only the theme, palette and reading choices you make, kept in this browser.
Exactly what that means
Your theme, palette, text size, contrast, motion and link preferences are written to this browser’s localStorage under the plinth:prefix, so the site looks the same next time. Nothing is sent anywhere, nothing identifies you, and declining clears what is already there and stops the site writing any more.
Design kit
Rebrand this demo live. Every control writes to the address bar, so the result is a link you can send.
