One of the ways lenders are helping homeowners keep their homes is through loan modification. This is a process in which the terms of your mortgage loan are modified to make your payments easier. It’s not refinancing because you don’t get a new loan, but the goal is to reduce your payments so you can afford them.
The Federal government has a Home Affordable Modification program in which lenders can voluntarily participate. If you meet certain criteria, you may be able to take advantage of the program. [More]
When you apply for a mortgage loan, a large factor up for lender consideration is the applicant’s income and job stability. You may think it is a wise choice to take that higher income-earning job before you buy a new home but you’d be wrong.
Switching employers or becoming an entrepreneur before or during your mortgage loan application and process could be detrimental to your approval from lenders. Mortgage underwrites look differently upon applicants who make a job change because essentially it changes income levels, which may prove to be a larger risk for defaults. [More]
Ahh…retirement. It’s a time most working people look forward to, especially toward the end of their careers. A comfortable retirement requires you to take care of your finances ahead of time. That may mean paying off your mortgage loan before you go into retirement.
Advantages of Paying Your Mortgage Pre-Retirement
You can never know how much money you need to have in retirement because you don’t know how long you’ll live. If you can manage to pay off your mortgage before you retire, you’ll have one less expense to worry about once you retire. And since a mortgage is a pretty big expense, you’ll have taken a lot off your plate. [More]
A reverse mortgage can be used as a source of income during retirement. It’s like a home equity loan, only the money doesn’t have to be repaid except in certain circumstances. You remain the owner of your home and the reverse mortgage lender sends you money.
How to Qualify
To qualify for a reverse mortgage, you must be at least 62 years old. The house that you get the reverse mortgage for must be your primary residence, meaning that’s where you live most the year. If you pass away, sell the home, or permanently move somewhere else, that’s when the reverse mortgage loan becomes due. At the time of death, your heirs or your estate will be responsible for paying back the reverse mortgage. [More]
When homeowners consider a refinance, they usually do it for one main reason – to lower a mortgage payment. A mortgage refinance is the act of securing a new loan on your existing mortgage balance, often at a lower rate and different terms. A refinance makes the most sense if you are in a good financial position, have good credit, and can meet the criteria of the lender.
The new loan and terms typically provide some relief from the cost of a mortgage payment. With lower interest rates and a lower balance to finance, you can save quite a bit of cash each month on your new mortgage note. With low rates still available, more people are taking the steps towards a refinance. But did you know there are other benefits from refinancing your mortgage? [More]
The closing of your mortgage loan is a big day to look forward to because when it is successfully complete, you will officially be a homeowner. Getting to closing can be a rough process because of all the inspections, paperwork, documentation, insurance searches, and so on. Purchasing a home can be an exhausting but rewarding experience and closing is the final step.
But never take for granted that a mortgage closing is a done deal just because the date is set. For some people, they actually get to the closing appointment only to find out something has gone wrong, the realtor has made a mistake, or the attorney’s office missed something. It can be quite a fiasco. [More]
There are predators of nearly every industry but when it comes to the mortgage industry, a potential homeowner can lose big time financially if taken for a ride by a professional scam artist.
Due to the recession and the tanking of the mortgage and housing industries, many current homeowners may also find themselves in a predicament a good con artist will target. Desperate times can trigger the increase of mortgage-related scams. [More]
Mortgage scams are being invented and upgrading every day with the intent of the con artists gaining access to the equity in your home or even to the home itself. Avoiding these kinds of mortgage scams is essential for your financial well-being, not to mention your state of mind.
It is not an easy task to pinpoint what is a scam and what is legitimate assistance for mortgage-related problems because the scheming individuals have developed many complex, deceptive practices to snag a homeowner facing foreclosure. But once you have discovered you have been victimized, the emotional toll of what occurred may cloud your ability to use good judgment in rectifying the situation. [More]
Despite the well advertised loan modification programs designed to help homeowners who are having trouble making their monthly mortgage loan payment, millions continue to come up short when that payment date arrives. There are some homeowners who are so underwater, foreclosure is unavoidable. Many others however would be able to get back on track financially if they could just lower their monthly payments. Traditionally the only way to accomplish this was through the refinancing of a mortgage loan. Unfortunately not all homeowners qualify for a refinance and for those who do, the costs put that option out of reach. The good news for homeowners is that there is another way to lower mortgage payments beyond refinance. This option is known as recasting or re-amortizing and here we will look more closely at this option and how it can help homeowners stay in their house. [More]
During the mortgage crisis, second mortgages got a bad rap. During the heyday of the housing boom, borrowers were finding it relatively easy to get into the home of their dreams without a single dollar sown. They were using second mortgages on top of the first mortgage to get in the door and no one was particularly worried about it all because home prices were sure to stay on the rise.
But then the bottom fell out. The housing process fell drastically and those with adjustable-rate mortgages found themselves unable to afford the higher payments each month. Since many homeowners were underwater on the mortgage, owning more than their homes were worth, refinancing the loans was not a possibility. Government assistance programs were also an unusable option because most only help out with first mortgages. [More]
