TedCo Software Financial Matters Blog

Some people use spreadsheets to create amortization schedules. Those are the people who understand spreadsheets.

And while creating an amortization schedule with a spreadsheet isn’t too difficult if you have time and a “how to” guide, most people who want to see an amortization schedule simply want an amortization schedule. They don’t want to learn to create spreadsheets.

The easiest way I know to create an amortization schedule is to use LoanSpread Financial Calculator. Anyone can create an amortization schedule with LoanSpread by entering three loan variables and clicking a mouse two times. It’s literally that easy!

The beauty of LoanSpread is that after the amortization schedule is created it is easy to modify it. If you want to see the effects of adding an additional amount to a payment, you can do it quickly by entering the amount and clicking a mouse.

LoanSpread lets you switch between monthly and annual amortization schedules with a single mouse click. In fact, everything about LoanSpread is designed to make it easy to create and modify amortization schedules.

Download a fully functional evaluation version of LoanSpread. Then, when someone asks “how do you create an amortization schedule?”, you’ll answer, “I use LoanSpread!”

LoanSpread is a loan comparison calculator which compares 135 loans, displays the nitty-gritty details of any that you wish, and creates amortization schedules for those you wish to amortize. Download LoanSpread and see how it makes financial math easy!

Ruston, LA September 6, 2008 — Wheatworks Software announces LoanSpread 4.7, a major update of its award-winning loan comparison calculator. This financial calculator allows the user to compare 135 loans at once, review detailed summaries of selected loans and print amortization schedules with or without prepayments.

LoanSpread Loan Comparison Calculator is a powerful financial tool for consumers and professionals in banking, lending, financial planning and real estate industries. LoanSpread helps professionals see the big picture quickly when considering the time value of money or a particular lending scenario. The financial calculation results are displayed on a grid of answers making relationships among principal, interest rate, term and payment immediately.

Consumers can use the power of LoanSpread to analyze and compare possible loans more quickly than ever before. Because LoanSpread compares 135 loans at once, borrowers save time. Users can print out the calculation results for all the loans on a simple, easily understood, one-page report containing the financial answer grid.

LoanSpread helps users compare mortgage loans, too. After entering the estimated annual property taxes and insurance, users can choose to include them in the calculation results so that payments, for example, reflect the true monthly loan cost of principal, interest, taxes and insurance.

LoanSpread Loan Comparison Calculator solves for any of the primary loan variables a user wishes. By clicking a button, a user determines which calculated variable is displayed in the answer grid. The financial answer grid updates instantly with the results for 135 different loans.

What’s new in LoanSpread 4.7?

New to version 4.7 is the ability to create and print amortization schedules with prepayments. A user can right-click any loan in the financial answer grid and create an annual or monthly amortization schedule for it. Once the amortization schedule is created, the user can easily add prepayments to a single payment, a range of payments or to all payments.

Available now, LoanSpread 4.7 costs $39.95. Significant discounts on multi-user licenses are offered.

A free, fully-functional, 10-use trial is available for download from: http://www.loanspread.com

About Wheatworks Software

For more than a decade, Wheatworks Software has created award-winning financial calculators for consumers, professionals and companies in the real estate, investment, mortgage and financial services industries. Founded in 1997 by Rick Wheat, Wheatworks Software has released several financial software products including, Home Buyer’s Calculator Suite, Real Estate Calculator Suite, Discounted Cash Flow Analysis Calculator, Home Seller’s Calculator, SaveSpread(tm) and LoanSpread(tm). For more information, please visit http://www.wheatworks.com.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MoneyToys(tm) Calculators for Real Estate Websites

Ruston, LA, July 12, 2008 – Real estate agents can add value to their web sites quickly with the collection of 17 real estate calculators available now from MoneyToys.com.

Web site visitors use MoneyToys(tm) real estate calculators to perform financial calculations without leaving an agent’s web site. MoneyToys calculators help real estate web sites keep the attention of home buyers and home sellers.

The 17 website calculators in the MoneyToys collection are easy to install. It takes only a few lines of HTML to quickly add interactivity to a web site.

MoneyToys meet the needs of local real estate markets. Real estate webmasters can modify default values to reflect local market conditions. For example, the calculators’ loan amount and interest rates can be easily configured for a changing real estate market.

MoneyToys calculators also fit into a web site’s design. The font and font size, colors and display size of MoneyToys calculators are easily changed to match the design of a website.

As website visitors enter their financial values, the MoneyToys calculators automatically compute and display financial answers. By adding this interactive feature to a web site webmasters increase the time visitors spend on their site.

Included in the growing collection of 17 MoneyToys are simple loan calculators, mortgage qualification tools, loan acceleration calculators, downpayment savings calculators, closing cost calculators, refinancing and payment calculators.

The entire collection of MoneyToys is available for only $139.95 USD. Individual calculators are available for only $39.95 USD each.

Real estate webmasters and agents are invited to try the entire collection of MoneyToys at http://www.moneytoys.com.

About Wheatworks Software, LLC

MoneyToys(tm) are a product of Wheatworks Software, LLC. Since 1997, Wheatworks(tm) has created innovative financial calculators for consumers, professionals and companies in the real estate and financial services industries.

Contact Information:

Rick Wheat
Managing Partner
Wheatworks Software, LLC
P. O. Box 7, Ruston, LA 71273
http://www.moneytoys.com

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The MoneyToys(tm) Web Site Calculators have been updated to version 2.1. The most important feature of these new financial calculators for web sites is their ability to read a user’s default regional settings and accommodate the settings with the local currency symbol.

For example, if your web site’s visitor’s computer is configured for English (US) regional settings, the Dollar Symbol will be displayed in the MoneyToys calculators. However, if the visitor’s computer is configured for English (United Kingdom), the browser will display the Pound Symbol. Other countries’ currencies will also be displayed as configured for the visitors’ regional settings.

Installation is simple. Three sample web pages and step-by-step installation instructions are included for each of the MoneyToys calculators.

More information about the 17 MoneyToys Website Calculators is available from MoneyToys.com.

This release is a free upgrade for all current MoneyToys customers. The entire collection of 17 MoneyToys calculators is available for only $139.95 USD.

Wheatworks Software, LLC announces the release of Free Loan Calculator, 4.5, a loan comparison calculator for Windows-based computers.

This free loan payment calculator for Windows allows you to quickly calculate and compare loan payments based upon variable payment frequency. It offers Daily 365/year, Daily 360/year, Weekly, Biweekly 26/year, Bimonthly 24/year, Monthly, Quarterly, Biannual, and Annual payment periods. Free Loan Calculator is a financial calculator designed for 2000/XP/Vista systems. It offers integrated help, provides automatic hints, and offers Wheatworks’ integrated Upgrade Center for easy, online updates. It allows you to compare two loans side-by-side and calculates Principal, Interest, Taxes and Insurance (PITI).

Free Loan Calculator is available as a free download from: http://www.wheatworks.com/free-loan-calculator.htm

Wheatworks Software announces the release of a new Free Rent or Buy Calculator for people considering the question of renting or buying real estate.

Deciding whether it’s better to rent a home or buy a home is a complicated decision. One fallacy that many succumb to is that home ownership is the cornerstone of the “American Dream”. It’s not.

The American Dream is related to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. A lot of happy people rent. They’re happy to let a landlord care for the property instead of enduring the stress of falling real estate prices and home maintenance.

Other important considerations include the local real estate market, how long you intend to live in the location, whether it’s a “buyer’s market” or a “seller’s market”, whether you have grown children or haven’t yet had children, and whether your concept of “home” requires ownership.

There are many things to consider when deciding whether to rent or buy a home. Some of these include whether or not you believe real estate is over-priced, the real estate market conditions where you wish to live, how long you’ll live in the home, and other considerations.

The most important consideration is probably financial. Wheatworks’ new Free Rent or Buy Calculator helps people look at the decision from a financial perspective.

Learn more about the Free Rent of Buy Calculator.

Download the Free Rent of Buy Calculator.

A new version of Real Estate Calculator Suite has been released by Wheatworks Software. Version 4.8 is a free upgrade for licensed users of previous versions. Real Estate Calculator Suite is an integrated collection of 16 real estate and financial calculators designed for Windows®-based computers.

Designed to make real estate math easy, Real Estate Calculator Suite provides calculated answers to financial questions related to buying or selling a home, refinancing a mortgage, or borrowing money.

Learn more about Real Estate Calculator Suite

Wheatworks Software announces the release of an updated version of Free Mortgage Loan APR Calculator. One of the free financial calculators from Wheatworks.com, this Windows®-based calculator runs on 2000, XP and Vista.

Learn more about the Free Mortgage Loan APR Calculator or download all of Wheatworks Free Financial Software.

New! Home Selling Calculator is the latest real estate calculator from Wheatworks Software, LLC. Home Selling Calculator, $29.95 USD, shows how the time a house is on the market impacts the home seller’s potential profit.

Home Selling Calculator accepts a homeowner’s financial values related to selling a home, calculates the monthly carrying costs and shows the homeowner how long a house can stay on the market at a range of sales prices while allowing the seller to make a profit. If a profit is not possible, Home Selling Calculator shows the loss.

Selling a house for a profit is not easy in a falling real estate market. Setting a good selling price may be counter-intuitive. No home seller wants to start low because it is difficult to raise an asking price. However, it may be better to start with a lower asking price when selling into a slow market.

There are numerous ways a home seller can determine a desired sales price. Some choose the “I want as much as I can get”, bottom line price based on a desired profit. Others seek professional help when determining a home sales price. Some explore the local housing market, comparing the house they wish to sell to similar houses.

Whatever method one uses to determine a desired sales price, home sellers often fail to consider the house’s carrying costs that will accumulate before the house sells. Carrying costs are the financial alligators that take large, monthly bites out of the seller’s profit while a house is on the market.

Home Selling Calculator shows clearly how these monthly carrying costs eat into expected profits from selling a house. While it will not tell a home seller what price to set on a house, it shows the consequences of carrying costs on the sales price over time compared to other sale prices.

Home Selling Calculator is Windows®-based and runs on Windows 2000, Windows XP Home and XP Professional, and Vista. Home Selling Calculator includes a Home Inspection Form to help you understand what buyers may be looking for when they look at a house and a Mover’s To Do List which helps a home seller prepare for their move into another home.

Home Selling Calculator may be purchased for $29.95 USD. Site licenses and volume discounts are also available for real estate professionals. This release (version 1.1) of Home Selling Calculator is a free update for registered users.

A fully-functional evaluation version of Home Selling Calculator may be downloaded from http://www.HomeSellingCalculator.com/Download.htm.

Windfalls happen. An extra sum of money lands in someone’s pocket. Not as often as we may wish, but windfalls can happen after a settlement, a tax refund, your great work earns a nice bonus, you receive proceeds from a home sale. It happens.

And there are three basic things one can do with a windfall. Spend it. Pay off debt. Invest it.

The most tempting option for many is to spend it. “After all,” one thinks, “this is extra money.” One can always and easily spend a windfall, but unless you have no debt and all the money you’ll need in the future (which no one can predict), spending it is probably not the best option.

That leaves paying off your current debts or investing it. Investing always sounds like the wise thing to do. “I sold my house and made $40,000. I invested it in a no-load, tax-free, indexed mutual fund.” That certainly sounds good. But what if you have debt?

Is investing a windfall better than paying off current debt? Of course, it depends. And interest rates are an important factor in the decision. If you’re choosing between paying off credit card debt at 28% or investing in a 4% CD, the answer may be obvious. Or it may not. If it’s not, you’ll want to download Wheatworks Software’s latest Free Pay Down Debt or Invest Calculator.

Enter 3 numbers (the amount of the windfall, the interest rate of your debt and the interest rate your investment may earn) and Pay Down Debt or Invest Calculator spits out the amounts your investment will earn and the amount you debt will grow. And the results are crystal clear now and up to
ten years into the future.

Pay Down Debt or Invest Calculator is a free, financial utility from Wheatworks Software, LLC. Download and enjoy it!