Should I take a 9% second mortgage to get a 2.5% assumable rate?

Nine percent sounds like a deal killer until you run the actual math. Ryan does it in this episode and the numbers make the case clearly. On a $500,000 home with a $400,000 assumed loan at 2.5% and a $75,000 gap loan at 9%, your total monthly payment comes out to about $2,184. A brand new $475,000 loan at today's rates runs about $3,000 a month. Same house, same amount borrowed, over $800 a month less with the scary second mortgage attached. Blended across both loans that works out to a combined rate of about 3.5%, and nobody is writing 3.5% loans today. Ryan also covers the two things that make the gap loan less permanent than it sounds: no prepayment penalty means you attack it aggressively while leaving the 2.5% loan untouched, and when rates come down you refinance just the second. The assumable rate stays locked. He walks through a real deal where a buyer assumed a 2.375% loan, covered the gap with a second mortgage from Climb Credit Union, and negotiated $7,000 in inspection resolution on top of it. Their total payment still beat anything a new loan could offer. The nine percent second is not the enemy. It is the bridge that gets you to the two point five. Hit up assumableguy.com or DM @the.assumable.guy on Instagram.