WHAT ARE ACCELERATED PAYMENTS?
- johnathanmcquoid
- Jan 17
- 2 min read
Accelerated payments are a simple way to pay down your mortgage faster — but most people don’t fully understand how they work or how much they actually save.
Here’s a clear breakdown 👇
💡 What is an accelerated payment?
It’s when your lender increases your weekly or bi-weekly payment amount just enough that you end up making the equivalent of one extra full mortgage payment per year.
This helps reduce your balance sooner and shortens your amortization — but the interest savings alone are often smaller than people think.
📌 How the numbers work
If your monthly mortgage payment is $1,000:
• Monthly: 12 × $1,000 = $12,000 per year
• Semi-monthly: 24 × $500 = $12,000 per year
• Bi-weekly: 26 × $461.50 = $12,000 per year
But accelerated bi-weekly uses the semi-monthly amount ($500) instead of the smaller bi-weekly amount:
• Accelerated bi-weekly: 26 × $500 = $13,000 per year
That’s one extra month of payments — which is why it speeds up the mortgage.
⚠️ A common misconception
Accelerated payments DO help…
but they are not a complete payoff strategy on their own.
With today’s higher mortgage balances, using only accelerated payments barely makes a dent unless combined with additional strategies such as:
• lump-sum prepayments
• increasing regular payment amounts
• shortening amortization at renewal
• debt optimization
💬 Final Thought
Accelerated payments are a great start — but for real impact, they should be part of an overall mortgage payoff plan.
If you want to explore the best strategy for your situation, send The Frontline Mortgage Group a message.
We’ll walk you through it step-by-step.