Hi @zomboo
Thanks for your response.
I am little confused when you say "Interest paid divided by interest rate method " method can NOT be used for mortgages less than 12 months in duration. I thought "less than a year mortgage duration" was the only reason why this method makes sense.
here's the text from the publication : You can use this method if at all times in 2023 the mortgage was secured by your qualified home and the interest was paid at least monthly.
As you can see, it does not mention whole year mortgage requirement. It does mention "at all times" requirement for securing the mortgage with qualified home.
In my case I simply bought another home last year but didn't sell previous one.
so I have primary (for part of year) & second home (whole year) mortgages and using "Interest paid divided by interest rate method ", it seems to do the right thing.
Pub 936 also talks about another method : "Statements provided by your lender"
I put ** in the relevant text of that method, seems like that method is also meant for cases of less than a year mortgage duration and this method also seems to make sense.
If you receive monthly statements showing the closing balance or the average balance for the month, you can use either to figure your average balance for the year. **You can treat the balance as zero for any month the mortgage wasn't secured by your qualified home.**
For each mortgage, figure your average balance by adding your monthly closing or average balances and dividing that total by the number of months the home secured by that mortgage was a qualified home during the year.
I believe I can use either "Interest paid divided by interest rate method" or "Statements provided by your lender" for my situation and default "Average of first and last balance method" method does incorrect calculations for cases of multiple mortgages with less than year duration.
does this make sense?
