[thaumasiotes]

> Overall your monthly payments remain similar.

This is not a good way to measure things. Did you just exchange 10 years of monthly payments for 30 years of "similar" monthly payments?

My mother protested to me over the cost of her new house, defending the idea that she could afford it by pointing out that monthly payments were similar -- property taxes on the new house were about the same size as mortgage payments on the old one. I was kind of horrified by this; conceptually, when you make a mortgage payment, your net worth goes up. When you make a tax payment, it goes down.