Money Talks Podcast: How do you pick the best mortgage loan for your new home?
Should you be using cash to settle your outstanding mortgage loan? Don’t, advises our guest.
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Buying a home is one of the biggest financial decisions of your life. But how do you make sure that you’re getting the most out of your mortgage?
In this episode of Money Talks, CEO of Mortgage Master, David Baey, shares his insights on how to navigate the costs of home ownership.
Jump to these key moments:
- 0:40 Apple Intelligence; Adobe being sued
- 4:55 Your first home
- 6:08 Choosing between HDB loan and bank loans
- 11:02 Loan amount vs loan tenure
- 15:36 Refinancing your HDB loan

Here's an excerpt from the podcast:
Andrea Heng:
I have a friend who decided to take on the strategy of, "We bought a BTO in Yishun back in the day. We chose to take a very short repayment period so that we can just finish paying off the house and then we just have the freedom to sell it later on at a higher price. And all of that money comes to us. It's pure cash."
But now they're stuck with low liquidity and they have a kid. So there are various schools of thought to this approach. And I'm just wondering what your thoughts were on that.
David Baey:
I actually don't think your friend is wrong. It really depends on different schools of thoughts. There's no right or wrong. As an adviser, I would say my job is to give you all the information. You make your choices yourself and if the choice is a bit hard, why don't you give yourself some leeway?
Andrea:
I think that's a good point, really knowing what you can manage at the end of the day.
So here's an example that I pitched to my dad. He is still paying off the mortgage through his CPF, which has now been converted to a retirement account so that complicates things, right? He still has to work to pay off this flat. He has 24 months to go before he's finally done with this loan, this burden, he calls it.
Now I told him, "Look you have this cash outlay available to you. Why don't you consider paying off that final two years, be done with it. You could even sell the house now at a high price and make that money back."
I don't know if that's necessarily a wise financial decision, and he's against it.
David:
Okay, so your scenario is very specific. So firstly, on paying off loans, again, do your planning. If you take all your money and pay it off and you have an emergency tomorrow, you'll regret it. So do not do the extreme.
But at the same time again, we are Asians, we are conservative. We don't like loans. So there is the mathematical brain, but there is also the emotional, conservative brain. And wanting to pay off a loan - I will not tell you is wrong.
I'll just tell you mathematically is wrong, but I understand your emotion.
So now back to your dad's story. It doesn't make sense of him to pay. I'll explain ... If his CPF can cover the loan amount (for) the mortgage, actually he's unburdened. It doesn't affect his life. But taking his nice gold cash stash and paying off the loan takes away security.
(When) he opens his ibanking (account) and sees the balance, he feels happy. If it's zero, it's not shiok. But it doesn't affect his life whether he's paying off or not because he's still working. If he's not working, then maybe he may consider paying because he don't want that burden.