Vernon F.
A HELOC Mortgage to reduce interest paid on a home loan.
Replace your mortgage.com I briefly listened to a portion of the sales pitch of this company, and according to what they said, I should be able pay off my entire mortgage in 7 years or less, with a HELOC loan. So, first to get a HELOC mortgage you would need to own some property, free and clear, to act as the collateral for the mortgage, which I don't see how that would work to buy the property initially. Then, a quick calculation, using my own $235,000 mortgage with a monthly payment of $1,457.00 monthly over a period of seven years equals a total of payments, without interest, to be roughly $122,000. Still far short of the total amount of $235,000. So, I see no way this will ever meet the expectation of paying the mortgage off in full, without having to add additional money to the payments. Even without interest, I calculate it will take 13 years, 4 months to pay off my mortgage. Of course the remaining payments of 16 years, 8 months would be solid interest. Therefore, when people are saying that they paid off their mortgage in 7 years and sometimes less, (even as little as 2 or 3 years) I look on this with a very skeptical eye, it is not mathematically possible. I feel this is greatly exaggerated.
Response from Replace Your UniversityMar 17, 2026
Hi there — I appreciate you taking the time to think this through and run your own numbers. That’s exactly what people should be doing. A couple of important clarifications, because there are some misunderstandings about what we actually teach at Replace Your Mortgage. First, you do not need to own a home free and clear to use a HELOC. Many banks offer what’s called a first-lien HELOC, which is used to purchase a home — similar to a mortgage, just structured differently. Second, your calculation assumes the payment stays the same and the balance declines slowly over time. That’s how a traditional amortized mortgage works. What we teach is different. The strategy is not about magically paying off a loan with less money — the math still has to work. It’s about changing how cash flow interacts with the loan balance, so principal is reduced faster, which in turn reduces how much interest accrues. When income is consistently flowing against the balance, the timeline can compress significantly — but it depends entirely on the individual’s cash flow, discipline, and structure. That’s why we’re very clear: this is not a fit for everyone, and results are not guaranteed. But for households that have margin between income and expenses, the difference in how interest is calculated can be substantial. Skepticism is healthy. We just encourage people to look at the full structure and math, not a simplified version of a fixed monthly payment over time. We also have a calculator on our website you can use. — Michael, Replace Your University