Short mortgages cost you more out of pocket every month--if you are like most of us, your income is relatively fixed--why pay $2389 a month on a 15 year loan, when you can pay only $1834 a month for the same house on a 30 year--or, better yet, you can buy a better house for the same monthly payment? The monthly payments on a 250,000 house financed for 15 years will buy you a 335,000 house, financed for 30 years--(These just happened to be the numbers that the mortgage calculator had in it)