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Kimberly Ponce Gonzalez

Professor Thorn

Math 1030

26 March 2020

Reflective Writing for Mortgage Project

This lab was finding a mortgage of a particular home that is the price of $271,500 and

doing calculations throughout the lab to find specific parts such as the deposit, loan amount,

monthly payments, interest, etc. There were several mathematical techniques used. For all of the

percentages, it was mainly in the beginning with the 10% down payment, and the different

annual percentage rates. To change them into decimals I moved it two spaces to the left. The

formulas I had used were the payout annuity formula, simple multiplication, compound interest

formula, and the annuity formula.

I definitely think this project shows how math can be applied to the real world because

for things such as loans you can figure out how big of a loan you can get and how much you

would be paying per month for that loan. It’s beneficial to have the certain formulas to figure out

the specific parts you would need to know such as interest as well. An example of another

application of where this type of analysis would be beneficial can be car loans, student loans,

anything that requires a type of pay period such as monthly, quarterly, yearly.

If I was a mortgage broker it would be important to be able to explain the details of this

project to clients because then they would understand why they can afford a certain housing

price and how much their monthly payments would be for the house, along with their take home
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pay for other things such as electricity and phone bills. The differences between the 30 year, 15

year, and 30 year with extra payment plans are: the total interest, total payments, the APR, and

the monthly payments. The total interest and total payments changed for all three of the payment

plans. The APR was 3.71% instead of 4.46% in the 15 year plan. The monthly payments in the

30 year with the extra $100 paid upfront was $1,332.28 instead of $1,232.28 in the original 30

year plan and 15 year plan. The pros of the initial 30 year plan is having a lot of years ahead to

pay for the loan and not having to pay as much per month as the 15 year loan. A con of it is

having more interest than the 15 year loan. As for the 30 year that has the extra $100 paid

included in the initial amount, it is more money paid towards the loan and less total interest than

the initial 30 year loan.

This assignment has changed my perspective of the usefulness of math a lot because I

have always thought that math was used in reality but I never thought that there were formulas

used specifically for loans. I think that it’s super useful to have formulas in general so to have a

formula for finding out precise things like a monthly payment amount and interest in a loan is

great. I also think it’s great that you don’t have to do much in finding out that information, you

just have to figure out each part of the formula and plug it in. In the past I would think that there

were problems in math that I thought, “When are we ever going to use this?” such as

Pythagorean Theorem and I’m sure the Pythagorean Theorem is used in real life but I probably

won’t ever use it in my career.

The average salary of my future profession in the United States is $227,293 and that is

for Psychiatrist. I couldn’t figure out the minimum annual gross salary but I researched what was

the average hourly wage for a Psychiatrist in Utah and it is $119.45. If the minimum annual
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gross salary in the assignment was less or more than I had expected I would just have different

views on the house pricing and consider whether or not I should get a get or just rent.