Ninety-seven percent of home-buyers are being misled by their lenders. If you don’t already know this, listen up, because you may be one of them. I was.

I should have had a clue when I bought my first property, because the total amount to be paid by the end of the loan, according to the sales contract I signed at closing, was more than twice the price of the property.

Perhaps you’re beginning to understand what I mean about being mislead by your lender. You find a nice three-bedroom home for $120,000. You save awhile so you can make a normal down payment without doing something risky, like 100% financing with “creative” home loan products. So with a 20% downpayment, you sign papers for a $100,000 loan.

At the closing, if not before, you see a frightening number: $215,838.19. If you thought you could afford a quarter-million-dollar house, you would have looked for more than three small bedrooms and one bath, wouldn't you?

But your accountant, a co-conspirator in your downward spiraling drama, keeps telling you you need the tax break–which must mean you’re going to come out better off than if you continue to rent. Right?

It’s not that the friendly loan officer at your bank, the one with pictures of kids about the same ages as yours on the desk, deliberately “put one over on you.” Nor that your old friend and trusted accountant intended you harm. Both were following conventional wisdom, which is half right; it’s conventional, but it’s not wisdom, not in this day and age.

Borrowing money itself is not what's wrong. What's amiss are the terms of the loan, terms few people understand. For the 97% that are the rest of us, we’re getting sold down the river under the guise of being helped to “live the American dream”—a dream of freedom no matter what country you live in.

You need to learn what the banker didn't tell you.

Owning a home can be a wonderful thing. It can also be a noose around the neck of your dream of freedom. The way to protect yourself is to be very sure you understand the costs involved before proceeding, and be sure you will be able to meet those costs without endangering your lifestyle. For example, what if you had to start drinking at public water fountains instead of carrying your highly filtered mountain spring water with you everywhere you go?

Even if you’ve already bought a home and are still making payments on it, there is still time to “save yourself.” There are ways to keep more of your money by avoiding the outrageous interest you already agreed to pay.