Interest Only loans are a standard loan. Often, these kinds of loans are used in the construction industry - interest is paid on the money borrowed to build and the principle paid back upon sale of the building.

You will not find an Interest Only loan offered on a thirty year deal like normal home loans. They are usually shorter term with fixed periods - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7 or 10 years.

Speak to your financial institution about them. They don't advertise them.

And realize: financial instititions do NOT want you to pay back the money and be debt free. They want you to remain in debt forever, because they make their money on the interest you pay and any "account keeping fees" they charge.

A $100,000 loan at 7% over thirty years will see a total of $239,508.70 paid back with $139,508.70 of that being interest.

If you actually paid it all back, the bank would not have an income source any more. To keep you as their income source - and thus in debt - they offer to refinance and consolidate all your loans, to re-draw your loan and access your equity while you pay it, home equity loans, etc. You are encouraged to go into more personal debt on your house by getting tax breaks to do so - to get bigger and bigger houses with bigger and bigger mortgages.

And while You might not lend someone money under those conditions (interest only secured with property), the banks do. They have to... it's how they make money - by lending it. And besides... it's not their money they are lending... it's someone else's - all the people who have savings accounts and all the money they get back as loan repayments.

And this second part... all the money they get back as repayments... means that for every dollar the bank has, they can lend it back out at least ten times. So $100,000 deposited is worth at least $1,000,000 in loans to them! Sometimes they can lend the same money out up to twenty times!

Banks and other lending bodies want you to stay in debt because you are their income source. They just want tell you, though.

Michael Ross