George Kamel - Money Expert Reacts to Dumb Mortgage Hacks

Episode Date: February 20, 2026

📈 Check out the Mortgage Payoff Calculator.    Everybody thinks they’re a real estate mogul these days. In this episode, I’m reacting to some of the worst “mortgage hacks” on the internet and breaking down what actually works, what’s nonsense, and what could leave you house poor and stressed.    Next Steps: ● 🎥 Watch my video How to Pay Off Your House in 10 Years or Less.  ● 📈 Are you on track with the Baby Steps? Get a free personalized plan. ● 💵 Start your free budget today. Download the EveryDollar app!   Connect With Our Sponsors: ● Get up to 20% off Cozy Earth with code GEORGE. ● Get 20% off when you join DeleteMe. ● Save money on your phone plan with Boost Mobile. ● Go to FAIRWINDS Credit Union for an exclusive account bundle!   Explore More From Ramsey Network: 🎙️ The Ramsey Show 🍸 Smart Money Happy Hour 💸 The Ramsey Show Highlights 🧠 The Dr. John Delony Show 💡 The Rachel Cruze Show 🪑 Front Row Seat with Ken Coleman 📈 EntreLeadership    Ramsey Solutions Privacy Policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

And that's why I do these React videos. You know, everybody thinks they're a real estate mobile these days. But just because someone scroll Zillow like it's their full-time job or binge watches every season of selling sunset, it doesn't mean they actually know what they're talking about. So today, I'll react to some TikTok mortgage hacks to let you know what's legit and what's a quick way to land on HGTV's next spin-off, House poor and afraid. And also naked for some reason? Hey, none of my business!

Property Brothers, you do you. Property brother's gonna property brother. But before we get into it, go ahead and hit that like button and subscribe button because that nickel bag control? Chef's Kiss. And shout out to our new channel sponsor, delete me. That's right. We're going steady now.

A little more. Almost there. Perfect. I'll tell you more about them later on. Let's get to the reacts. Before you buy a house, let me show you a quick hack. Congrats on buying your first house. Don't mind me asking, but how can you?

you for the mortgage. Didn't you just graduate college? Yeah, thank you, but I'm actually going to live at this house for free. You just signed a contract with the bank saying that you're going to pay $1,500 each month. What do you mean you're going to live in this house for free? Hey Maria, so I remember that you told me you can't stand living with your parents anymore. I got a house. Do you want to come rent and room? Yeah, just like $500. For sure. You want to move in tomorrow? Okay. Hey, Lily, so I just heard you broke up with your boyfriend. Do you need a place to stay? Yeah, I just bought my house. Yeah, 500 bucks. Okay, I'll go to the store for some ice cream. Kevin, I just bought my house. Hey, I remember that you said that your lease is almost up, right? You're paying like $900 for a bedroom.

How about this? Come live with me for $500. Yeah, let's go. How is this not illegal? Yep, it's called house hacking. First of all, you're going to let Kevin live in this house? That's a wild move. That's a, that's a choice. I'm going to say that. Uh, okay, house hacking has been around for a long time. We just gave it a a cool, stupid name to make it sound less dumb. But here's how it works, right? You buy maybe a duplex, maybe you just live in the house with these people, like in this scenario. But this idea that you're going to go buy a four-bedroom house with nothing down, and

they're just going to give you all the money, and then you're going to magically get three roommates to pay all of this, and it's going to go perfectly well is an absolute pipe dream, which makes it great for a TikTok video, doesn't it? Here's what you're not thinking about, them destroying your house, vacancy, maintenance, maintenance, repairs, insurance, being the landlord while you live in the house, it's not going to be all fun in games. And I doubt these numbers would ever make sense in today's world. So thank you, Jazz, for the fun little skit, but no thank you.

I'm going to hard pass on this just for the sake of Kevin. A really big turnoff that Kevin's going to be living there. Let's see if the comments agree with me here. Yep, Lou said it's fun in games until they're late pay. Thank you for that. Remember to put them on a contract, though, for a X, five exclamations, six exclamations. The question I have here, your friend just went through a severe breakup and you're like...

Money, please. Also, let's get ice cream. Wild behavior. Jazz. One Z. That's even more wild. I'm here to make my first mortgage payment. Great. Your monthly payment will be $2,000. Actually, I think I'll pay you $1,000 biweekly. Oh, that's so much trouble.

Listen, pay me monthly and we'll call it even. No, really. I insist. $1,000 every two weeks. But that's the same as $2,000 monthly. Not exactly. By making bi-weekly payments, I'll be done with this mortgage in 24 years versus 30, and I'll save close to $100,000 in unnecessary interest payments.

What? No, no, no. Oh, yeah, 52 weeks in a year. I make 26 payments, meaning I pay you $26,000 in a year. If I made monthly payments, I would pay $2,000 over 12 months, which means I pay you $24,000. By making one extra monthly payment a year by paying bi-weekly, I will save close to $100,000 and be done with this thing six years early.

Would have gotten away with it too if it wasn't for John's finance tips, a fellow real estate investor who's helping you save some big money from the big banks. Okay, here's a deal. This is true. I actually don't have a problem with this video other than it's a big psychological mind game to make you think you're playing a fast one on the banks. Here's all you're doing. You're just paying extra.

So just do that intentionally. The way I did it, I just put extra on top of the principal. So if you're going to pay $2,000 a month, just do $2,200 a month. After 12 months, you paid an extra $2,400. So you don't have to trick yourself into doing this by making it biweekly and then making 26 payments instead of 24. Just simplify it and put extra on the principal. With most lenders, there's not going to be a penalty to do that. You just want to make sure to market toward the principal and not interest.

One person, which just is true, banks don't let me do that. I tried yesterday. they will not take partial payments. Now what? Some banks don't allow this. My bank doesn't allow it. Does this principle apply to car loans? Okay.

We've digressed here. So a lot of banks won't allow this, but what they will allow is paying extra on the principle along with your payment each month. Simple. Good work, John. If you want to remove PMI from your mortgage, watch this. Hello, lender.

I'd like to remove the PMI for my conventional mortgage, please. Yeah, no. We don't just remove PMI. Sorry. Actually, you do. under the right circumstances. Housing prices are super high right now. I put in some work over the last couple years,

and I know my house is worth more now than what I bought it for. For that reason, I'd like to order an appraisal. If my suspicion is correct and the appraisal comes back high enough, I'll have more than 20% equity in my home, which means you can remove the PMI. You are absolutely right. Are you following ECOM Jess? Actually, I am ECOMJES.

Yeah, this one is true. A lot of lenders, once you hit that 20% equity level, you can remove POMJES. PMI. Now, is it as simple as just asking? Sometimes you'd hope so, but this is America. And so sometimes they make it difficult. One person in the comments correctly said FHA loans do not qualify. So if you got a conventional fixed rate loan, this is possible. And if you don't know what PMI is, don't worry about it. Just kidding, it's private mortgage insurance. And if you put less than 20% down on a house, the lenders are going to put this little tax on you to protect themselves. The insurance

is for the lender, not you, because you are a riskier borrower because you have less money. down. I love if you could put 20% down or more to avoid this, but if you can't, once you hit that threshold, I would get it removed as soon as possible. Thanks, Ecom, Jess. Questions on closing on your first home. Your loan is for $300,000 at 3.5 interest, and your monthly mortgage payments is $1,347. Sounds good, but I'm actually going to be paying you $1,500 per month. Why would you do that? Well, I know that if I just made the regular monthly mortgage payments, then I'll be paying about $185,000 in interest over the lifetime of the loan. Yes, that's That's correct.

But if I pay an additional $153 per month, my total interest reduces to $151,000, saving me $34,000 over the lifetime of the loan. Plus, I'll finish off paying the loan in 25 years and one month versus the traditional 30 years. It's pretty significant savings for just putting an additional $5 per day. Wow, it's pretty smart. How did you find out about this? I heard it from Sean.

He makes real estate easy, and that's why I followed him. Gosh. Guys, you know what? You can hate me. But at least I don't do that at the end of all my videos. Where'd you hear that? I follow George Camel. That's what you want to do when you see that.

But I actually like this video. This is one of the least anger-inducing real estate TikToks I've seen in a long time. We talked about this earlier, but paying extra on the mortgage is clearly going to save you on interest. I want to show you just how much you could save using the Ramsey Mortgage Payoff Calculator, which I will link in the description if you want to try this with your own numbers. So let's check this out. Original loan amount. Let's use his numbers.

$300,000. Data first payment. Let's say it's February 1st, 2026. The loan length, 30 years in this case. Three and a half percent interest, which pipe dream. It's really going to be 6%. Continue. This is wild.

That $300,000 loan at 6% will cost you $647,000 after those 30 years. if you just make that payment every single month and no more. But let's say we want to put an extra $1,000 a month toward it. It's $12,000 a year. If you can do that, and let's start the payments the same time we took it out. So February 1st, 2026, calculate results. That is wild. The interest savings alone, $216,000, on a $300,000 mortgage, mind you.

So instead of paying almost $650,000, we pay $430,000. That is some serious savings for consistently paying extra on the mortgage, and obviously you're debt-free way faster. Instead of 30 years, you're 2026, 2038, you shave 17 years off that bad boy. If you're paying extra on your mortgage, you're clearly a smarty pants. So why not upgrade your actual pants to? Well, enter Cozy Earth, a sponsor of today's episode. Their brush bamboo joggers are the smartest, most luxurious item in my wardrobe. Plus, super comfy, ultra-breatheable, and temperature-regulating, so you can stay cool while making those extra mortgage payments.

And right now, you can get 20% off those brush-bamboo joggers and everything else on their site when you go to cozyearth.com slash George and use promo code George at checkout. Or click the link in the description below. And before we get back to more mortgage hacks, there's another kind of hack you need to know about. If you've ever Googled yourself and saw your home address pop up, that means your personal info is just floating around the internet,

making you a prime target for spammers and skymen. scammers. But that's where today's sponsor, DeleteMe, comes in. They find and remove your info from hundreds of data broker sites, and then they'll send you a detailed report showing you exactly what they removed and how much time they saved you. So go take control of your privacy online by going to join DeleteMe.com slash George, and if you do so, you'll get 20% off through annual plans. You can also click the link in the description. You should never put 20% down when you're buying a home. You should put 5% down instead, and this is why. When you put less than 20% down using a conventional mortgage, you're actually going to save money on the cost of the

interest rate that you're going to receive. So if you want the lowest rate, 20% is not the way to get there. Here's what you're going to do. You're going to speak to your lender beforehand and make sure that the mortgage you're receiving is eligible for a recast. A recast means that you can make a lump sum payment toward the principal balance on the mortgage after you close at any time. And that's going to reduce the balance, the payment, and eliminate the mortgage insurance that you're having to pay for running less than 20% down. So here's the plan. You put down 5, 10, or 15% immediately after closing, you put down the difference of what would have taken you to the original 20% you wanted to put down, lowers the balance, lowers the payment, gets rid of the

mortgage insurance, and allows you to keep that lower interest rate for all 30 years of that mortgage. My brain is broken after watching this man. And a thousand percent chance those are not real glasses. I don't know what he's, why? Are these like, These like Facebook meta-glot? Is he filming a second angle there? And why is he constantly moving? Slow down, dude. I don't even understand how this math would work.

If you're putting down the same amount, the balance is the same, the interest rate is the same. Not sure where he's getting this. The recast doesn't change the interest. You're just updating the payment based on the current balance. That's it. The balance stays the same. The term stays the same. I'm just curious if there's other sane people in the comments.

I disagree. Don't continue giving you hard-earned money to your lender. Pay as much as you can down or pay cash. Hey! Bra, the monthly payment is egregious. Don't do this, guys. Your monthly payment is more important than the down payment. You're going to pay PMI.

Have to pay that for two years minimum. Truth, FHA will always have PMI. PMMM is now a life and a loan. I disagree with you about... A rare win for the comment section. And by the way, my comment section of my channel, you guys are just a gift. A real blessing in my life.

So, drop a comment below. So give yourself a little round of applause. Put those little digital hands together for doing the Lord's work by having a positive comment section that isn't filled with a bunch of scam artists like this guy. Get some real glasses. Tiffany, spelled T-I-P-H-A-N-I-E.

Take that with a grand assault. She commented. It doesn't lower the payment. It just re-amortizes the current loan. And another one from Jimmy Crickets, to round it out. Never take financial advice from a bro wearing a baseball cap backwards. That coupled with the fake glasses, unhinged behavior. Zero stars would not recommend straight to jail. It's a civil law. No one's going to go to jail.

Haven't even started it yet. I just want to call this out. This title naming convention of banks hate this mortgage trick. It's a little played out, okay? I don't think the banks care. What they care about is if you avoid them completely and pay cash. But let's see what she has to say. Big banks don't want you to know this trick because it could cost them over $100,000 in interest payments. from you. If you have a 30-year fixed mortgage, grab your statement now, find your principal

and interest payment, ignore the taxes and insurance of PMI. Here's the magic formula. Take that P&I number and divide it by five. Let's say your principal and interest is $1,800 per month. Divide by five, that's just $360. Now, here's what you do. Make that extra $360 as an extra principal-only payment every month. Make sure it's marked principal only or the bank might apply it wrong. This one simple move cuts 10 years off your mortgage without refinancing, without qualifying again, without paying closing costs. On a $300,000 loan, this saves you approximately $133,000 in interest over the life of the loan. Most loan officers will never tell you about this because they only make money when you refinance with them, not when you pay off early.

We're free. Follow me for more mortgage strategies that no one talks about. Okay. Well, we already talked about this. So I think people are talking about that paying off your mortgage early saves you interest. But thank you for the salacious naming convention to get me to watch it. It worked. Melissa. If that even is your real name. Okay. So she is right in that if you put extra like $360,000 extra on top of your principal, like we showed you in the calculator, you will pay off your house faster and save a boatload. in interest. I mean, the loan officer who got you the loan, their job is done. They're not making money off your interest anymore. The lender who holds the loan is, the loan officer has moved on with their life, Melissa. And also, the banks make money off origination fees too when you get the loan.

They're making money every which way. They're going to find a way to make money, but you can really stick it to them by getting rid of it completely. And that's what I did. I paid off my mortgage extra fast, and I did the math. This was back in 2019. And the math is, and the math is, I would have paid well over $100,000 in interest on the 15-year loan, but because I paid it off super early, I paid less than 10,000 in interest, and that's how I like it.

What did I do with that extra 90 grand that I would have spent? None of your business? Never gonna tell. I just want to see, just for fun, just wanna see what the comment section's saying about this. Cat, I did this, it works. I also applied my entire tax refund to the principal every year. Way to go, Cat.

What a responsible move. Someone else. This is how I paid off my first house by the age of 36. on a 40,000 per year income. Way to go. Property number two is almost paid off. This is fantastic. Another one, sure, I'll just pluck three bills off my magical money tree.

Easy. Who hurt you? Oh, man, the replies are juicy on this one. Love this fantasy she suggests. Okay, there's two types of people. The type of person who goes, yeah, I'll find the money and make it happen and make a priority. And then you've got the magic money tree guy who goes, Must be nice to have an extra 300 bones.

You know that's how he sounds. Yeah, who has an extra three a month? Guys, most of your car payments are well over 360 bucks a month. So if you sold the car and drove a cash car for a while, you could easily come up with this money. I'm sick of these excuses. Working on this with my therapist. All right.

I will never shut up about this. If you're a small business owner or you're an influencer and you're trying to buy a house, please don't go to a bank. And I'll explain why I'm just a second. The first of you're new here. I'm The New Lender. I've been a lender for 10 years. Let's get into this. Can we just nerd out for just a hot second?

And then I promise it will all make sense. So in the world of mortgages, there are things, regulations, guidelines, rules, like boxes you have to fit in for most of these banks. Is there a 2X speed button on TikTok? Can we, do they vent that yet? We're like 4%. Three and a half minute. You guys sent me a three and a half minute video?

I'm aging like Obama in office over here watching these. videos. Come on, come me some slack. Now, with the rise of social media influencers, TikTok creator fund, YouTube, just owning a small business, being a hairdresser, and making a ton of money in your community, you're going to write off a lot of things on your taxes, especially if you get a really good tax accountant. Now, when you go to your big bank that you've been banking for forever, you have your business account with, they have this cute little tiny box to fit you in that if you don't fit in, they can't issue you. mortgage. And the biggest guideline that they have the most common is that in order to calculate

your monthly income, they use the last two years of your taxes after all those write-offs. So you might make $500,000 a year, but you wrote off $490,000 so that you're not paying Uncle Sam way more than you probably already do. But on paper, you only need a 10-gram one year. So that is the income that they have for that one year. Let's say you did the same. So first, make a half million dollars then commit tax fraud. Got it. Check. Also, be an influencer. This is a very specific video. If you're an influencer making $500,000, watch this. Otherwise, keep scrolling. Last year, and you wrote off more than half of your income, well, that is the income that they have to use in order to qualify you. It doesn't even matter if you have 50% for the down payment. Because there's

not enough income there for the monthly for them to be able to prove that you can make the payment. Okay, so why am I even telling you all of this? Because I have a solution. It's called the bank statement loan and actually at cross-country mortgage, which is the bank I just moved to 10 months ago, is because we are the leading lender in this. Like they do 64%. It's like insane. So instead of the last two years of your tax returns, we take the last 12 months of your bank statements and we calculate your income by the average deposits that are in those bank statements. I cannot tell you guys how many creators, influencers, self-employed people, people who sell watches, people who I just did one for a big gambler over the summer.

A big gambler? And watch sellers? What is? Are you dealing with the cast of uncut gems? What is this? People will qualify to buy a house with this. Now, historically, because these are called non-QM, non-qualified mortgage, or they're just called literally like outside of the box loans, they are said to be more expensive in interest

rate and just overall in the cost of the loan. That is true at most places. but here at cross-country mortgage, which is literally why I came here, we do everything in house. So we don't have to broker that loan. She legit said, I'm not like the other guys. We're different. Which means there are a lot less costs in that loan.

So if you're going to do 25% down for a home, the rate that you're going to get is very similar, if not the exact same rate as if you just did a normal conventional loan and you did fit in the box. I will never shut up about this loan because a lot of people just don't even know that it exists, but also a lot of people, unfortunately, especially if you're in a little money in cash and hope to buy that house in cash because they don't think that they can borrow money, which that just doesn't even make sense.

Even if you have the money to buy a house that's $500,000 all in cash, why would you when you could invest that money? I mean, we could get into that's a lot of video. Send this to the guy selling watches in your community, making half a million dollars. I'm going to get started and follow me along here for more mortgage tips. I will never get back that 210 seconds. Never. It's never going back. It's just gone. It's in the past. What's done is done. And you know what? She kept saying she's never going to shut up about this and that's the most true thing she said in this video.

Sometimes it's wise to just shut up. That there's wisdom in not spit. Go read proverbs. A lot of books about fools running their mouth. But the wise, quiet. Everything you said is right away apart to the homin. If you're writing off 90% of your revenue, you're writing off 90% of your revenue. You shouldn't be buying a house LOL. Of course, all the realtors and mortgage people are like, so true, girl, never shut up. Love the content. Link please. PSA, if it feels too good to be true, it normally is, tread carefully. Thank you.

Facts. I just bought a million dollar home through a bank statement program as a small business owner. It's absolutely possible. Okay, Jordan manifestation expert. I don't buy it. All right. So if you are a manifestation expert influencer, this is for you. I'm done. I'm done with this video.

He's done! Done! As per usual, producer Alex has provided a surprise bonus clip, and the only thing he told me is that this was a popular trend on TikTok. I am not up with the trends, so I'm about to be up. Telling my old man, I'm not going to be able to pay the mortgages this month, laughing emoji, crying emoji. Okay. I need to tell you something serious.

And I don't know how I'm going to tell you this. you this. I'm not going to be able to pay the mortgage this month. In that case, bye. This guy could not be bothered. He barely gave her a smirk. That's so much he did not buy this. First comment, indigenous men are beautiful. Who am I to disagree? It's a good looking guy. Perfect skin, beautiful hair, love the vibe, cool tattoos, everything I'm not. What does that make me then?

Am I just Dijunus? I don't know. What's the opposite of indigenous? Oh, that's why this is viral. Everyone's attracted to this man. So far all the comments, respectfully, he got a brother, cousin, uncle. He's so pretty though. Man, with all due respect, okay, not gonna even read that one.

I'm just waiting for one comment about the actual joke about her not being. able to pay the mortgage this month. Nope, still, nope, still, just people thirst trapping this fella who didn't ask, he's more than just a beautiful, indigenous man. He's a soul, he's a mind. Nothing, literally nothing, just a bunch of ladies who can't keep their eyes off of him.

I'm still going, guys, thousands of comments and all about his looks. And you know what, that reminds me in my comment section. For once, I want someone to say, George, Fantastic financial advice, super helpful, love the budgeting tips, but instead, it's all stuff, it's stuff like this, guys. And honestly, I'm flattered, truthfully. But it just gets old. When I walk around, I'm in the street and people are like, George, oh my gosh, like, this is the most beautiful man I've laid eyes on.

And I'm like, guys, can I just get a drink at Starbucks? Like, can I be harangued and harassed? Just out in public? Anyways, great hack. I assume the joke is that she doesn't pay the mortgage and that he, handles it and therefore it's a WTF moment. Why the face? Is that what's happening? I've got to watch this other one related to see. Hey, I'm not going to be able to pay the mortgage this month. I ain't going to have the money to pay it. I'm not going to be able to pay the mortgage this month. Why is

every dude's reaction explet? Why is every dude's reaction explet? Anger. Clearly there's some built-up resentment. This guy is very upset. Okay, so the joke is that women traditionally aren't handling the major finances, and so it's hilarious to be like, hey, I'm not going to be able to make it this month, so we've got to figure that out. But I think there's a lot of women out there who actually are the smart ones financially. And we get calls like this, and they are handling, they're running the finances, but the husband hopefully is very much involved. So be on the same page. It's fine if one of you clicks the button or has it on auto pay, but it is a funny trend. It's a funny, I'll give you that. All right, stupid hacks aside,

your mortgage is not something to mess around with. For most people, your house is the biggest purchase you'll ever make. And the way you handle that mortgage can either save you tens of thousands or even over 100,000, or cost you even more. And if you really want to save money on your mortgage, here's the real hack that's not really a hack at all. Put down as much as you can as a down payment, to 10% is okay for first-time home buyers, but I love shooting for 20% or more to avoid that PMI and reduce the amount you need for a mortgage, which also reduces your payment. Also, choose a 15-year fixed-rate mortgage where the payment is no more than a quarter of your after-tax monthly income. What that does is it keeps you from buying more house than you can afford,

and it also forces you to pay off that house at most in 15 years, but likely you'll pay it off early if you follow those parameters. And then pay it off as fast as you can. Just put extra on the principle, like I did. And remember, the more you can pay, the better. And if you're in a season where you can't, that's okay. So there you go. You don't need to say some secret word to your lender to magically unlock savings. You don't need to do a triple backflip and recast and he lock your way out of this thing.

You just need a budget, a plan, and enough margin to make extra payments. Because building wealth is not about hacking the system. It's about doing simple things consistently over time. And if you want to know how to pay off your house in 10 years or less, Click here to watch this video up next where I break it down or click the link in the description. Be sure to share this video with someone who's banking on their five and a half roommates

to make their mortgage, including Kevin. Thanks for watching. We'll see you in the next video. Should I look away? A little more butt rock if you look. What? This mortgage. All right, there it is.