Saturday, February 10, 2007

Finding The Right Mortgage Insurance

Finding The Right Mortgage Insurance was written by Martin Lukac and he writes "Any time you wish to take out a mortgage on a home, whether you are purchasing or refinancing, any lending institution will require you to carry mortgage insurance as well.

Mortgage insurance is a guarantee for the lender that, should something happen to you or your spouse, they will still receive their investment back. Most banks will try to get you to purchase this insurance directly through them. If you are interested in saving yourself several hundred dollars, then this is probably not your wisest option

Mortgage insurance works much in the same way that a life insurance policy does. The borrower is insured for the amount of the original loan, and in the event that the borrower passes away, the bank has the assurance that the amount of the loan is covered..

If you purchase this insurance directly through the bank where you have your mortgage, the monies from the policy will go directly to pay off the balance of the loan. However, when you purchase your mortgage insurance policy through an insurance company you can name your beneficiary just as you can with life insurance, and YOU decide how the monies will be spent.

Purchasing your mortgage insurance through a private insurance company, such as Canada Life or National Life, will allow you much more freedom and control over your policy. With a reputable insurance company, you will never have to worry about a bank not renewing or outright canceling your mortgage insurance policy. Nor will you have to worry about your premiums increasing with time. With a private insurance company, the amount of your premiums on a twenty year policy will still be the same twenty years from now as they are today.

A bank, on the other hand, will often raise your premiums by as much as 40% over the life of the policy. In addition, the value of a bank's policy will decrease in face value through the years, whereas a privately held policy will not.

Too often, home buyers will simply accept the lending institution's insurance terms because they believe that it is more convenient than shopping around for a reputable insurance company. Truth be told, it is relatively simple to get a great deal on your mortgage insurance, thanks to companies like The Hughes Trustco Group. With The Hughes Trustco Group, you can easily compare quotes from numerous insurance providers side by side so that you can find the policy that is perfect for you and your family.

While keeping a mortgage insurance policy is required for purchasing or refinancing a home, it is important that you remain in control over your policy options.

Allowing a bank or other lending institution to make important decisions about your policy for you can be costly and detrimental to your insurability later on. Be sure to choose a reputable, private insurance agency that will personalize your policy to fit the needs of you and your family, keeping you in control of your benefits, and ultimately saving you time and money.

RateEmpire.com, http://www.RateEmpire.com, an internet consumer banking marketplace is a destination site of personal finance, investing, taxes and mortgage rates. RateEmpire.com provides mortgage guides and financial rates and information. RateEmpire.com also operates a financial portal #1 American Financial, found at http://www.1AmericanFinancial.com and debt consolidation portal for business, real estate or debt management http://www.1DebtMoney.com


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Posted by Indri at 4:37 PM | | Comments  

Friday, January 12, 2007

Refinance & Mortgage Tips: Your Down Payment Is Key

Tristan Hunt has written Refinance & Mortgage Tips: Your Down Payment Is Key and writes "If you are buying a house, the first thing you need to figure out is how much of a down payment you can afford to make. This may seem like the sort of advice your father would give you, but rest assured there are a few reasons why knowing what you can put down and where you’ll get the money can make all the difference when shopping for a house and a mortgage to finance your new purchase.

Before you pick up your local newspaper and browse the real estate section looking for a new house, call up your banker, your accountant, or your spouse and find out how much you’ve got in savings and liquid assets to make the down payment and pay the closing costs on your mortgage.

First you must consider the source of your down payment, because this affects how much of the down payment your lender will actually attribute to you the applicant for the purpose of qualifying you for loan programs and determining your rates and payments. If the money is from your savings and securities / investment portfolio, be sure you can prove it. If you have employer retirement tax deferred accounts, 401(K) 403(b) accounts etc. and would like to use those as a source to finance the down payment, the lender will likely have several special conditions and limitations on the treatment of those funds. If you are receiving the down payment in part or in total as a gift, your lender will have another set of rules which will affect your payments. How you pay for closing costs will also have some affect on your final rates and payments; the more you take from a third party like the seller, the more risk the bank assumes.

A rule of thumb about size: the bigger the better when it comes to your mortgage down payment, at least from the perspective of programs, rates and payments. The more you put down out of your own savings, the lower your payments and the broader your selection of loan programs. An added benefit is that more money down means that any blemishes on your credit report or a low score count for less and less the more you pay upfront, and you also reduce your income requirement by improving your debt to income ratio. By knowing how much you can put down, you will know in advance how much house you can be qualified to purchase by your mortgage lender, get that mortgage pre-qualification letter, and know what to put in your purchase offer with your realtor, lawyer and seller when it’s time to make an offer. By finding out what you can afford to put down, you can get a head start on knowing your overall homebuying budget, financing options, and also have time to take care of the documentary requirements, seasoning and time-sensitive pre-requisites associated with closing your deal, saving you weeks if not months of wasted time sorting out these matters after you’ve found the house of your dreams.

So find out what you can put down and where you can get it from, contact a mortgage broker to find out what you can afford and what you can do with your down payment and documentation to get the best rates, payments and terms, and then take a pre-approval letter from the broker with you to start shopping for homes with a full knowledge of what you’ll be asking for and writing on the contract."

About The Author
Tristan Hunt is a seasoned financial professional with a wealth of experience in the mortgage & wealth management industries. Visit Tristan and the whole RefinanceOne Mortgage team at http://www.RefinanceOne.net for advice about refinancing mortgages, debt consolidation, investor loans for real estate or buying a house with a home loan.

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Posted by Indri at 2:15 PM | | Comments  

Friday, December 08, 2006

Refinance Mortgage Loan: Tips on Refinancing Your Home Mortgage


Carrie Reeder has written Refinance Mortgage Loan – Tips on Refinancing Your Home Mortgage and writes "Refinancing your home mortgage can come with some great perks. If you do it with no money out of pocket, you can skip one to three mortgage payments. You can save money on your payment or pay off your entire mortgage faster when you have better terms. Here are a few things to pay attention to when you refinance your mortgage loan, to make sure that you don’t overlook anything that you might regret, or that can cause you problems later:

1. Apply for a pre-approval to many different lenders to make sure you are getting the lowest rate possible. When you do this, make sure that with the initial pre-approval application, the lender is not pulling your credit history. You will want to reserve your credit pull for the lender that you are most likely to work with. You can decide that after you have gone through the preliminary pre-approval process with a few lenders. Each time your credit is pulled, it docks your credit score just a little. If you have too many inquiries, it could keep you from refinancing your mortgage loan with the lowest rate possible. When you pre-apply for home mortgage loans online, most lenders or mortgage service companies will not initially pull your credit. Check for information about this on their website. They will usually tell you whether or not they are going to pull your credit. Also, if on the application you do not give them your social security number, they cannot pull your credit. If, on the application, they ask you to describe your credit, they are probably not pulling your credit.

2. Make sure that your original mortgage does not have a pre-payment penalty or early payoff penalty of any kind. Sometimes people will get into their mortgage with the mortgage having a pre-payment penalty and they will not even know about it. Pre-payment penalties usually range from 6 months to 3 years with a penalty for an early payoff. The penalty is usually about the amount of 6 months worth of your mortgage loan interest, but this varies. You would have to be able to have some significant payment and interest savings on your refinance loan to justify refinancing a mortgage loan with a pre-payment penalty.

3. When evaluating different lender offers, in the mortgage loan pre-approval process, pay closest attention to the interest rates they are offering & the closing costs. These are the two biggest factors that will help you figure out which lender is right for you. If one of these two factors is too high, it could offset the benefit of refinancing for you.

4. Get your interest rate and closing costs in writing as soon as you decide on a lender to work with. Get your lender to give you a commitment in advance of all of the costs that will be involved with your loan. Find out if the refinance loan you are getting has a pre-payment penalty as well. Sometimes lenders will leave out important information like this, if they think it might scare you away from refinancing with them."

To view a list of highly recommended refinance mortgage lenders, most of which will not pull your credit in the initial application, visit this page: www.abcloanguide.com/refinance.shtml.

About The Author
Carrie Reeder is the owner of http://www.abcloanguide.com. ABC Loan Guide is an informational loan website with informative articles, the latest finance news and lists of recommended mortgage lenders.
carrie@abcloanguide.com


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Posted by Indri at 2:06 PM | | Comments  

Thursday, December 07, 2006

4 Ways To Know It’s Time to Refinance Your House


Richard Martin has writen Mortgage Refinance: 4 Ways To Know It’s Time to Refinance Your House and writes "You may want to refinance your home for several reasons.

1)Mortgage Rates might be lower now. The biggest reason that people refinance their mortgages is to save money. No matter what has happened to you, there is always a good reason to start saving money. A lower rate on your mortgage can help you stretch out the payments so that every month you are paying less to live in your house than the previous month. When interest rates are low and you had previously locked your mortgage into a higher price, it might be a good idea to shop your rate around to see how low you can get it. The early 2000's have been an environment of very low mortgage rates which make it a good idea to shop around to see if you can refinance your mortgage.

2)You need money and need to stretch out your payments. Maybe you've recently filed for bankruptcy and therefore need more money to get back on your feet. Maybe you've switched jobs and therefore need to refinance your mortgage in order to make your monthly payments lower. No matter what people say, it's always a good idea to have more money in your pocket than less, isn't it? Refinancing your mortgage might be a good idea in this situation.

3)There may be better deals out there than you think there are. Finding a new mortgage company or bank to refinance your mortgage might be a good idea just to kick the tires of the industry and see if you could get a better deal. If you've been spending a lot of money and paying off the balances on your credit card on a monthly basis there is a significant chance that your credit score has increase recently. An overall better credit score is better for everyone including your lenders. If a new lender sees that your credit score has increased recently, she might be in a much better position to give you a better deal on your mortgage than you think. She could refinance your mortgage by shopping the deal around at more banks and finding the best one for you. Shop your refinancing around, it can't hurt.

4)Mortgage refinancing as a sound business decision. If you own a small business of any sort and need a capital infusion, then investigating mortgage refinancing might be a very smart thing to do. If your business is truly small and you run it out of your house, then the line between your personal and business expenses might be thinner than you are reasonably comfortable with. Clearing up a little extra capital, through refinancing your home, every month might be the difference between investing in some new small equipment and not investing. Everything that is an expense should be lowered if possible. Refinancing a mortgage might be a fantastic idea to increase capital reserves and to plan for future investments. Many business owners who work out of their homes constantly try to decrease their monthly payments so that when it comes time to pay their business bills, they have a little extra capital. Always check with a CPA or attorney to determine what is deductible and what isn't. But, more money is more money, even if you are lending it from yourself to your business.

Mortgage refinance can clearly be of good use in many situations."

About The Author
Richard Martin is a contributing writer at http://www.LegalClips.com. LegalClips.com has Vioxx and injury lawyer articles.


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Posted by Indri at 1:49 PM | | Comments  

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Mortgage Refinance with Bad Credit - The Pros and Cons

Monique Thomas has written Mortgage Refinance with Bad Credit - The Pros and Cons and writes "To many, the term 'bad credit' is the end of the world when it comes to getting financing in the near future. However, it doesn't always have to be like that, you can take the bad credit mortgage refinance option!

Mortgage refinance vs. equity finance
It is essential at the outset that you understand there is a fundamental difference between mortgage refinancing and equity financing. Basically, with equity financing you are using the surplus amount you may have stored up in your property between your outstanding mortgage amount and the appraised value of your home. However a mortgage refinance is where you find a new lender willing to lend you the whole appraised value of your property, the sum of which you then use to repay your existing mortgage lender and the remaining sum you can utilize in any manner you wish. Because of this, you are faced with a different set of problems than would be the case with an equity financing.

The pros of a bad credit mortgage refinance
Aside from any possible equity financing you can do with your property, without doubt the biggest upside to a bad credit mortgage refinance is the fact that it is a long-term and cheap form of borrowing. Interest rates are likely to be low and, possibly, can even be fixed. You could even possibly benefit from certain tax advantages from a bad credit mortgage refinance.

Because of this, bad credit mortgage finance can allow you to do things financially that may not otherwise be available to you as a person with a bad credit rating. You could use the equity you free up after you repay your original mortgage lender to invest in stocks and savings that will give you a better yield than you are currently getting on the property.

Alternatively, you could pay off all outstanding debts you have so that you have no interest and debt payments to make each month – merely a mortgage repayment. Finally, you could even use the equity you get to invest in a long-term investment plan like your pension. In fact the options are so limitless that you should really consult with a financial expert who can best advise you on how you should put that money to the best use for you!

The cons of bad credit mortgage refinance
The number one downside to any mortgage refinancing, whether it be bad credit or otherwise, is the fact that mortgage lenders do not like to be repaid early. As such they usually incorporate some expensive penalty clauses to try and make it not worth your while repaying them early. With this in mind, you will need to read your original mortgage agreement with your original lender very carefully to make sure you won't have any onerous default payments to make; or, you could try and arrange for the new lender to swallow these.

That said, if you make any arrangements with the new lender that they agree to pay these fees for you, you then need to make sure they do not put any restrictive clauses in your new refinance mortgage agreement that would prohibit you from refinancing your mortgage again at some time in the future if the occasion warrants such.

Without a doubt, as a person with a bad credit history and bad credit rating, a bad credit mortgage refinance can open up avenues to you that would not otherwise be there. You do, however, need to give consideration as to whether or not you want to take this route. Not least because at the end of the day your house and family home is on the line!"

About The Author
Monique Thomas helps you find the resources and information you need to make an informed decision on your finances. Subcribe to our announcement list by visiting: http://www.crazydebt.com


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Posted by Indri at 12:53 PM | | Comments  

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