Is there a penalty?

I'm the real estate guru so Steve, our mortgage wiz, will probably have more and better specifics.

But I do want to say on my personal home equity loan, the big prepayment penalty is for closing down the loan early in its life -- in the first 30 or 36 months, I don't remember which. There's a big hidden hit there that my banker showed me, about three thousand dollars, so he cautioned me not to pay the loan off completely in the first three years -- he basically said don't take out this loan if you're going to turn around and sell the house in two years.

If I keep my loan open, though, I can pay down 98% of my outstanding debt without getting socked. I don't know if yours is the same -- you might want to take a look at your specific loan papers.