| 271. | Home Financing Questions Answered
Here are answers to some common questions asked by consumers considering a mortgage loan to finance their home purchase. ..
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| Tuesday, December 03, 2002 |
| | 272. | Unconventional Loans for Unconventional Homes
Unconventional homes can require unconventional financing. Is the home on wheels? Does it float? Was it built on the property it is setting on? Did a train or a truck bring it there or did you drive it there yourself? Was it assembled out of a kit? Are you also buying the land it rests on, or renting it? We are actually talking about two different types of homes here -‹ hose that float and those that don`t. ..
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| Tuesday, November 26, 2002 |
| | 273. | No Docs, Low Docs, and NINAs: Mortgage Options for the Self-Employed
For most self-employed people, saving money on taxes and getting a mortgage can, at times, seem to be mutually exclusive. In order to keep your taxes down, you write off as much of your income and as many of your day-to-day expenses as possible. The main point of the tax game is to reduce your taxable income so that you report as little as possible. However, to qualify for a mortgage you have to show a high taxable income, so when you play the mortgage game you have to show that you make lots and lots of money and can afford to make mortgage payments. ..
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| Tuesday, November 19, 2002 |
| | 274. | FHA Program Reduces Mortgage Insurance for First-time Buyers
Mortgage insurance is a fact of life in any FHA (Federal Housing Administration) home loan, which is a mortgage loan insured by FHA, an agency within the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) that administers loans, but does not lend money directly. If you are a first-time buyer applying for an FHA loan, you can both reduce its cost and get some free schooling in the process--schooling that could make you a smarter homeowner, consumer, and credit user. As an added bonus, you don`t technically have to be a first-time buyer to qualify as a first-time buyer. This means that if you meet the criteria, you can get the same reduction on a second or even a third home. We`ll look at just how loosely the FHA defines a first-time buyer a little bit later. ..
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| Tuesday, November 12, 2002 |
| | 275. | How Much Should You put Down on a House?
When you are buying a house, one of the big issues you must face is figuring out exactly how much money you have to come up with for a down payment. However, there¹s another question that you need to answer. Should you put down more than you have to? Every dollar you borrow has to be paid back, with interest, and that interest adds up. ..
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| Tuesday, November 05, 2002 |
| | 276. | You Can Back Out of a Mortgage Before You Sign
Even the best-laid plans sometimes fall apart, and when they do there are usually repercussions. If the plans that fall apart are those for getting a mortgage for a new home, or for refinancing your present one, the repercussions will be fairly minor--probably less than $500. ..
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| Tuesday, October 29, 2002 |
| | 277. | Keeping Your Investments and Purchasing a Home
For people who have considerable investments, but who also want to purchase a home, there are some viable options. A very desirable option is one that lets them keep their investments and also purchase the home. Sometimes people who are purchasing a home sell some of their investments in order to obtain cash for the mortgage transaction, especially if they need money for the down payment. This can be a large amount of cash if you are considering making the usual down payment of 20 percent of the value of the property. For example, on a $100,000 home, 20 percent would be $20,000. ..
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| Tuesday, October 22, 2002 |
| | 278. | The VA Loan: A Well-deserved Benefit
There is probably not a veteran who has not complained about military food, regulations, uniforms, and other aspects of service life. Once out of the service, however, few veterans ever complain about being able to buy a home with a Veterans Administration (VA) loan. It`s a deal that`s almost impossible to beat. There is positively no down payment. Of course, if you have the money and the desire, you can make a down payment, but you don`t have to with a VA loan. In addition, the interest rate charged on the mortgage is competitive and the loan amount can go as high as $203,000 with no down payment, depending on income and property appraisal. ..
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| Tuesday, October 15, 2002 |
| | 279. | 203k Loans -- Like Having Your Cake and Eating It, Too
One of the biggest problems with buying a house, especially an older house, is that when the deal finally closes and everyone has been paid, you usually don`t have enough money left over to fix it up the way you`d like to. It`s a lot like the old saying that you can`t have your cake and eat it too. Well, that`s where a 203K loan comes in. It is a mortgage loan that lets you buy your house and fix it up, too. ..
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| Tuesday, October 08, 2002 |
| | 280. | Fannie Mae Opens Door to More Homebuyers
Getting a conventional mortgage loan has just gotten a whole lot easier thanks to Fannie Mae, a federally charted private company that buys mortgages from lenders. The new "My Community Mortgage" program offered by Fannie Mae will allow some 20,000 low- and moderate-income borrowers to buy a home. The people who get these mortgages will probably never know that Fannie Mae made it possible. ..
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| Tuesday, October 01, 2002 |
| | 281. | Considering Adjustable-Rate Mortgages and the Savings They Offer
You should take a good look at adjustable-rate mortgages (ARMs) along with fixed-rate mortgages when deciding how to finance the purchase of your home The main advantage of an ARM loan is that it offers a lower introductory rate than a fixed-rate loan does. This means a lower payment for a certain amount of time. For many first-time homebuyers this lower rate could make a difference in how much house they can afford to purchase. A lower rate might make possible a second bathroom, another bedroom, or a special room, such as a family room or home office. ..
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| Tuesday, September 24, 2002 |
| | 282. | The Real Rules of Refinancing
Various experts have different "rules" about refinancing your home that spell out when you should or should not do it, and incorporate the cost of getting the loan and the difference between the old and the new interest rates. ..
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| Tuesday, September 17, 2002 |
| | 283. | Your Homebuilder Might be a Good Source for Your Home Mortgage
When you buy a home, you either come up with the money to buy it out of your own savings, or you go to a lender to finance it. There really aren`t many other options. However, when you buy a new home directly from the builder, you might be able to get the builder to finance it, and save yourself some time, aggravation and money in the process. You might even get something nice for the house -- such as an upgrade -- as a bonus. That`s because some builders like the flexibility and control that financing the homes they build gives them, according to Steve Wittner, first vice president in the wholesale division of Countrywide Home Loans, in Calabasas, California. ..
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| Tuesday, September 10, 2002 |
| | 284. | Higher Conventional and FHA Mortgage Limits Set for 2001
You are not the only one who has limits when it comes to the size of mortgage available for a home. Your lender has limits, too. These limits are spelled out every year and dictate the size of the loan they can make and still consider it a "conventional" mortgage loan. ..
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| Tuesday, September 03, 2002 |
| | 285. | Avoiding Foreclosure: Keep Your Home and Your Dignity
"Foreclosure" is one of the scariest words any homeowner can hear, and with good reason. Aside from the actual financial loss involved, losing your home can be a horrendous blow to the ego and an emotional burden on you and your entire family. ..
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| Tuesday, August 27, 2002 |
| | 286. | It`s Tax Time! Let`s Hear It for Mortgage Interest Payments
One of the depressing things about a mortgage is the amount of interest you have to pay over the life of the loan. However, that depression changes to jubilation at tax time, when the interest you pay becomes a tax deduction. Your annual mortgage interest deduction is the number one tax advantage of owning a home, explains Louis Samuel, a former IRS agent who is now a tax lawyer in Encino, California. Samuel, who spent more than 20 years with the IRS before switching sides 15 years ago, says, "This is especially true for new home buyers in the first few years of owning a home, when almost all of their mortgage payments go toward interest." ..
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| Tuesday, August 20, 2002 |
| | 287. | Buying Land to Build A Dream Home Can Be A Nightmare
When you think about buying a piece of land and building that dream house you`ve always wanted, remember that a dream can turn into a nightmare. Whether your project becomes a nightmare or a pleasant dream will depend upon how well prepared you are. ..
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| Tuesday, August 13, 2002 |
| | 288. | Want to Know Your Mortgage Future? Check Your Past
In real estate, the three most important things to keep in mind are location, location, and location. However, when it comes to applying for a mortgage for that piece of real estate, the three most important things to keep in mind are history, history, and history. That`s credit history, to be exact. Yours. ..
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| Tuesday, August 06, 2002 |
| | 289. | One Percent Doesn`t Sound Like Much, but It Does Add Up
We all know that the lower the interest rate on your mortgage, the cheaper the loan is, and with mortgage rates hovering around two-year lows, refinancing is making a comeback. More and more people are thinking about refinancing and wondering how much they could actually save. It could be quite a bit. ..
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| Tuesday, July 30, 2002 |
| | 290. | Want to Pay Less than Zero Down for a New Home?
There was a time when the only people who could get a zero-down-payment mortgage were veterans taking advantage of their Veteran`s Administration (VA) housing benefits. Not anymore. Today, the zero-down-payment loan is also common with both Federal Housing Administration-insured (FHA) loans and conventional (non-government backed) mortgages. The reason, according to Greg Frost of Frost Mortgage in Albuquerque, New Mexico, is quite simple. Veterans pay off their loans. Over the years, the record shows that veterans pay off their zero-down loans at a rate comparable to those borrowers who had to make down payments in order to qualify for a mortgage. ..
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| Tuesday, July 23, 2002 |
| | 291. | Title Insurance Guarantees that It Really is Yours
Most insurance is for things you "own," but title insurance covers you just in case you don`t actually own your home. That`s because the title insurance you buy when you buy a home doesn`t insure the home at all, or its contents. What it does insure is that you have a clear title to your property. If someone comes along and says that he or she is the real owner, you`re covered. ..
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| Tuesday, July 16, 2002 |
| | 292. | APR Reflects the True Cost of Your Home Loan
Looking at the interest rate you pay on your mortgage and at the actual APR, which stands for Annual Percentage Rate of interest, is a lot like looking at a jacket and a pair of slacks. Sometimes they match, and sometimes they don`t. It all depends on whether or not you had to pay points, and if you are paying mortgage insurance. ..
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| Tuesday, July 09, 2002 |
| | 293. | Finding the Right After-Bankruptcy Mortgage
A bankruptcy is like an illness, an injury, or even an addiction. The problem itself is not nearly as important as the fact that you recover from it. While many of the aftereffects of a bankruptcy can cause you credit headaches and problems for seven to 10 years, you can still qualify for a mortgage. In fact, you might be able to get an "A-paper" mortgage (one that requires very good credit) at the going interest rate in as little as two years, as long as you can convince a lender that you have recovered. Even if you haven`t shown complete recovery from the bankruptcy, you can still get a loan, but it will be at a higher -- maybe much, much higher -- rate than the going "A-paper" rate. ..
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| Tuesday, July 02, 2002 |
| | 294. | Purchasing a Condo as Your Castle
You may want a condominium (condo) as your castle -- your home. When you own a home, you generally own the entire house, inside and out, as well as the property on which it sits and almost anything the zoning laws don`t prohibit you from doing. However, when you have a condominium, your individual ownership stretches only as far as the interior walls. ..
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| Tuesday, June 25, 2002 |
| | 295. | The Good Faith Estimate: A Key to Comparison Loan Shopping
When you take out a mortgage you tend to focus on the size of the payments, when you have to make them and on the size of the penalty you`ll have to pay if you make a late payment. You don`t, as a rule, think about penalties you might have to pay if you pay the loan off early. However, they do exist in some mortgages, and they can cause you problems -- expensive problems. ..
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| Tuesday, June 18, 2002 |
| | 296. | The Prepayment Penalty: A Contract Clause That Can Cost You Money
In theory, comparison shopping for a home loan is the same as comparison shopping for a TV set. If you know the model number of the TV you want, you can call around and whoever quotes you the lowest price wins. When you`re buying same-for-same, the seller with the best price gets your business. It`s a no brainer. Comparison shopping for a home loan is somewhat more complicated. However, there is something you can do to simplify the process and give yourself a better idea of which lender actually offers you the best deal. ..
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| Tuesday, June 11, 2002 |
| | 297. | When You Re-Fi or Buy, Do So with Energy Efficiency
When it`s time to buy your next house, or refinance the one you`re in, consider buying or refinancing your way to lower energy costs. Depending upon whom you listen to, we are either in the middle of or just at the beginning of the worst energy crunch since the 1970s. In either case, energy costs are going up in many places and if you are like a lot of other people, the only way to avoid having the cost of cooling or heating your home force you into bankruptcy is to invest in some energy efficient equipment. ..
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| Tuesday, June 04, 2002 |
| | 298. | From Conventional to Jumbo Loans: The Jump from Chilidogs to Chateaubriand
In the same way that burgers, fries and a chilidog, topped off with a soft drink, and caviar, crepes and chateaubriand, accompanied by a fine wine, all fit under the broad category of "meals," home loans for $50,000 and for $500,000 both fit under the category of "mortgages." In mortgages the differences are a lot greater than those between chilidogs and chateaubriand. ..
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| Tuesday, May 28, 2002 |
| | 299. | Balloon Mortgages, Like Balloons, Can Be Scary When They Pop
Everybody loves balloons. They`re big, colorful and cheerful, and light enough to be carried by the wind. Then there are balloon mortgages, which are another matter entirely. While big, they are not, as a rule, cheerful or light. For some people in certain situations, they can be useful. They can, however, come in different "colors"‹mainly different shades of currency green and debt red. ..
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| Tuesday, May 21, 2002 |
| | 300. | Immigrants Are Eligible for the American Dream of Home Ownership
Every 10 years the U.S. Census Bureau publishes the results of our national census and reminds us that we really are a nation of immigrants -- and that more immigrants are arriving and joining our nation every single day. These people are also buying houses, which is why Fannie Mae, a federally chartered private corporation that buys mortgages, and the Federal Housing Administration (FHA), which insures home loans, have established guidelines for home loans for immigrants. ..
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| Tuesday, May 14, 2002 |
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