Bullet Loan
Also known as a balloon loan, this type of loan is usually for a mortgage but can be for any other type of credit.
You might have low monthly payments (or even none) for a certain period of time, but at the end, or “maturity date,” you need to pay back the entire loan with interest.
Perhaps you don’t have the money to take out a large mortgage at the moment, but you are expecting a large inheritance, or to strike oil in your backyard. Bullet loans are frequently used by builders, as they can wait to repay the loan when they have built and sold all their houses. Then they can take out a new loan at hopefully lower interest rates, using the land and houses as collateral.
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![Finance: What is Balloon Interest, or a Balloon Payment?](https://media1.shmoop.com/video/thumbnails/COURSE.FINANCE.555_770x433.jpg)
Finance: What is Balloon Interest, or a ...197 Views
Finance a la shmoop what is balloon interest or a balloon payment. All right
people you blow and blow and blow and blow and then one day it pops. Well [Balloon with loan written on it explodes]
that's kind of what a balloon loan looks like in most cases common loans are paid [House with a sold sign]
down as they go like a home mortgage on you know your brand-new home there
Well it starts out as 400 grand payable over 30 years and then little by little
grinding away year after year after year the loan is paid down and the final [Years going by and the principal remaining reducing]
payment is like well just a few grand and you're the proud owner of a 30-year
old shack it's become one after 30 years... Well were this a balloon payment style [Picture of a wooden old house]
of loan well you might have just paid interest on that four hundred grand for
twenty nine point nine years and then that last payment would be the four
hundred grand principle you'd borrowed. Huge or as a famous real estate man once
said huge, that could be one month's interest on the four hundred grand plus [Donald Trump appears]
four hundred grand well that last balloon payment will have
popped when you've paid off your house. Well the same structure of debt lives in [Guy pops the balloon with a pin]
the world of zero coupon bonds and t-bills as well where you as an investor
buy a notional par value of say a grand, at a discount meaning you're buying that
thousand dollars at a discount... meaning you pay six hundred forty-two
bucks for a payment of a thousand dollars in six years with no payments of
interest or pay down of principal in between. That final loan payoff is the [Hot air balloons in the background]
balloon oh happy day and it isn't even your birthday [Guy in a suit dancing with balloons and confetti falling]