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Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Refinancing Your Mortgage 101

Practically everyone has refinanced or thought about it at one point in time. We've seen the dozens of commercials that urge us to do it. With rates at record lows over the past few years, refinancing has helped many borrowers lower their monthly payments.

Refinancing your mortgage can be a very hard and confusing experience. When you're making your decision, there are several things to keep in mind.

First, even a small rate cut can pay off quickly.

Second, if you are planning to stay in your home for at least three to five years, it may make sense to pay "points" (a point equals 1% of the loan amount) and closing costs to get the lowest available rate.

And third, you can avoid a cash layout and still get a low rate by adding the fees and closing costs to your new mortgage. This does not mean shouldering a lot of extra debt. If you've had your current mortgage for at least three years, you've probably reduced your balance by several thousand dollars. So you may be able to tack your closing costs onto your new loan, lock in at a lower rate and still end up with a mortgage amount that's less than your original one. More importantly, a lower monthly payment.

Another factor to consider is how long you expect to stay in your home? If your planning to move in the next few years, the monthly savings may never add up to the costs that are involved in refinancing.

You may have bought your home with a finance company mortgage, or took out a second mortgage to pay for central heating or furniture. Your payments are probably very high because some finance companies charge interest rates of up to 50 per cent. It is advisable that you look carefully at the small print to find the true rate—most mortgage refinancing loans are over a fairly short term, about 15 years at most.

HOMEOWNERS Please get the very BEST financing rates available today Meleik Norman represents Mortgagewayz.com where we have Great rates on new home mortgages, refinancing, home equity loans, debt consolodation loans, and more for all credit situations. If you wanna learn more just visit my website at www.meleiksmall.mortgagewayz.com

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Friday, September 29, 2006

Mortgage Marketing 101: A Crash Course In Mortgage Loan Marketing

There are a zillion ways to do mortgage marketing. Obviously we cannot cover even a small percentage of them here. But what we will cover is a few basic mortgage marketing advertising tips that can help you succeed in your mortgage marketing.

Mortgage Marketing - Lesson #1

All your marketing should be held accountable for itself. This means that all your mortgage marketing advertising should be bringing in more money than it is costing you. And you find this out by tracking all your advertising. The easiest way to track is to ask people when they call or come in. "Where did you hear about us?"

If you do a lot of different mortgage marketing advertising, then you need to add tracking numbers to your ads. For example, add coupons to your ads that people can tear out and bring in for a free gift. The coupon should have a tracking number on it so you can tell where the customer got the coupon.

Mortgage Marketing - Lesson #2

You should focus on getting the prospect's contact information in all your advertising. Get them to give you their name, address, phone, and email. This will allow you to follow up with them. Build up your database as fast as possible. Your database is your greatest and most valuable business asset if used properly.

Mortgage Marketing - Lesson #3

Stay in constant communication with your database. At least once a month, they should hear from you, about you, or read about you. The best way to do this is newsletter mortgage marketing. By using this great tool, you can have something in their hands every month. Newsletter mortgage marketing is a must for every loan officer. If you do no other mortgage loan marketing, you must do this. And you must do it every month.

The trick is to outsource the newsletter to a newsletter mortgage marketing company. These companies will write, design, print, and mail your newsletter for you to whomever you want. All you have to do is give them a photo of yourself and pay them every month. They do the rest.

To get the names of some great newsletter mortgage-marketing companies, visit: http://www.mortgagebrokertraining.com/Links/a+-recommended-vendors.html

By just using newsletter mortgage marketing I have seen some of our coaching clients go from zero referrals a month to 2-3 referrals a month. Just by using a simple newsletter.

Mortgage Marketing - Lesson #4

Ask everyone you know for referrals. Contact all your friends, relatives, past customers, and keep asking for referrals. You won't get unless you ask. We have a great program that can help you generate more referrals than you can handle. It's called Referrals on Demand and you can get more info at http://www.mortgagebrokertraining.com/referrals.html

Referrals are the easiest loans to get, and close. You also make more money on a referral loan than a regular loan. And they treat you with more respect. Once you build up your database to a few hundred, you should focus more on them, and on generating referrals. It is the cheapest form of mortgage loan marketing out there today.

About The Author

Ameen Kamadia, "The Millionaire Loan Officer" has taught over 4,583 loan officers to get more loans and make more money. For 100's more FREE tips and strategies that will skyrocket your business, visit http://www.mortgagebrokertraining.com.

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Thursday, September 28, 2006

Mortgage 101 - Rational Decision Making

A big part of getting approved or rejected in the mortgage process lies in your ability to make rational, unemotional decisions. It's essential that you separate yourself from the emotional issue of getting a house and approach the whole process like a business.

People get a bit goofy when it comes to money… especially when it comes to their money and in the case of the getting a mortgage you're talking about the most money anyone will ever spend. As a result, if you can take the emotion out of the equation your chance of making the right decision will increase dramatically. If not, you could be in for a tough road because people who make mortgage decisions based on emotion - make mistakes.

Mistakes = Emotion + Money
Those who take their time and make decisions based on the reality of their individual situations enjoy much greater success when you look at their overall financial situations.

The following questions are designed to help you determine how long you expect to be in a prospective new house or hold a mortgage. They should also help you to do the necessary soul searching "before" you make such a huge decision. In fact, the length of time you keep a mortgage may be the most important financial question you need to answer because how you answer it will determine the strategies you need to follow when selecting and paying off a mortgage.

The bottom line is that only you can make the decision because only you know your position in life now and only you can make the decision on what direction to take your life in the future.

Personal Questions
1. How long did you live in your last house? Why did you move and is that a recurring factor in your life?
2. Are you expecting any major life-style changes?
3. Any major health concerns in your life?
4. Is this going to be your last house before retirement?

Family Questions
1. Are you expecting any new family members (i.e. children, elderly parents, etc.)?
2. When will your children be moving out?
3. How stable is your marriage?

Financial Questions
1. Am I expecting a promotion or job transfer? Am I transferred at regular intervals?
2. How is my overall job stability?
3. Are you planning on retiring soon or are you just entering the work force?
4. Is this an investment property with long term rental potential?
5. Instead of selling this house when we move, could we rent it out?

Economic / Geographical
1. Are property values going up or down in the neighborhood?
2. Is the local school system acceptable?
3. What are the property taxes?
4. What is the overall economic condition of the area - city, county?
5. Are there any long term changes expected such as roads, schools, malls, etc.?

Location / Neighborhood
1. How long will this house meet our needs?
2. What is the condition of the house? Any major repairs needed?
3. If this is a starter home will it be too small in a few years?
4. How are the neighbors?
5. Does the overall condition of the neighborhood appear to be improving or deteriorating?
6. Are you buying this house only because it's all you can afford?

Of course, there's many more questions that could be asked but for purpose of this article let's take a look at some examples that will demonstrate how answering particular questions will help you in determine what type of mortgage to pursue - 30 year fixed, interest only, 2/28 ARM, 15 year fixed and so on.

Example 1 - If you lived in your last house for about 10 years and the house before that for about the same amount of time, odds are you'll live in the next one for lengthy period of time also. Therefore, you should accordingly and thus you may want to look at either a 15 or 30 year fixed mortgage.

Example 2 - If this is your first house and you plan on moving out as soon as you can afford it then plan on the best mortgage for being in a house for a short period of time. An interest-only or 2/28 ARM mortgage may be the route to go. The 2/28 ARM is fixed for two years and then the rate goes up (it's adjustable) but if you plan on moving quickly anyway the first two years is will be lower than a fixed rate mortgage and thus it will save you money. Interest-Only mortgages are usually amortized over 30 years, just like a 30-year fixed but since you are only paying the interest the payments will be lower. Therefore, if you would like to lower your payments and possibly use the extra money to save for a down payment on your new home then an interest only mortgage may be a good option.

Logical Decisions + Effective Planning + Money = Success
Although it's difficult, if you remember to approach the purchase of a new home as a business decision and not as an emotional one the odds that you'll make the right decision will be greatly enhanced.

This article may be reproduced only in its entirety. Kevin Erickson is an entrepreneur and writer. You'll find more of his work at: Bad Credit Mortgage | Eliminate Credit Card Debt | Debt Management

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Wednesday, September 27, 2006

Mortgage Refinancing 101

Managing your finances is as important as earning them. Rather at times it is more significant to administer your resources than actually find ways to earn. Since imprudent investments might result into drainage of hard earned monetary resources. Diligent management of income enables one to enjoy maximum benefits even by incurring minimum expenses. Careful analysis of financial situation is more important when credits and mortgage of house property is involved. At the time of purchasing a house due to time limits or other inevitable circumstances one might be compelled to accept loan at higher interest rates. Also there might be situations when earlier rate of interest on loan are higher than current rate charged by banks, in such a financial scenario it is always wise to reconsider all monetary state of affairs.

As economy of finance, investments and banking gets more competitive with every passing year it is the consumer who benefits from cutthroat competition. As a result of growing financial system several schemes are introduce frequently for attracting potential patrons. It might occur that mortgage companies would be ready to waive regular charges like legal fees, appraisal and application expenses incurred during refinancing. This is an ideal situation to opt for refinancing as in such situation one can avail lower interest rates without any cost involvement. Well a catch here might be that these companies would charge interest a bit higher than the current market rate. But considering one’s individual financial circumstances if one stands to profit even for that higher rate it is advisable to accept refinancing form the firm.

The time span passed after accepting your present mortgage is a vital consideration. Generally if around three years have lapsed since mortgage was done refinancing of the same might be fruitful. This is so as after loan repayment for that much time the loan actually gets condensed to a lesser amount coupled with lower prevailing interest rates one can hope to achieve reduced monthly payment liability.

By passage of time paying capacity of an individual increases this may again lead to considering refinancing of funds. One might be interested in increasing his monthly payments so that he could enjoy other capital benefits. Shortening the term of mortgage is another appealing factor as it leads to faster building of equity. A shorter mortgage term at lower interests results in bigger monthly installments but at the end one benefits by paying less overall interest on total loan amount.

One more important factor that directs to consider refinancing is want of some ready cash. At specific situations one might need some extra money to fulfill certain upcoming demands. This actually is “cashing out” on the home equity built up during the years. Here a person refinances for more than the balance amount left on loan. This is achievable even without increasing the amount of monthly installments due to lower interest rates. Wise use of extra income made by refinancing is always important. Utilizing this revenue to pay off certain short-term loans as for example car loan or a credit card loan is one of the best way spend that extra cash.

About The Author

Mansi Gupta writes about mortgage refinancing. Learn more at http://www.info-web-online.com.

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Tuesday, September 26, 2006

Foreclosure Law 101 For Homeowners

Foreclosure laws span from state to state but here is some overall information about foreclosure laws. When a person falls behind on their mortgage payments and they have defaulted on their debt, the bank may foreclose on their property.

The bank does this by filing a lawsuit in order to get a court order to foreclose. Once the court declares foreclosure on the home, they auction it off, with the highest bidder buying the property. There is a waiting period between the date of the lawsuit and the foreclosure sale, which is often between three and twelve months based on the foreclosure law in the state.

They publish a foreclosure ad according to foreclosure law at least thirty days before the auction, once a week for up to three weeks. Before they place the first ad, the homeowner must get a sheriffs notice of foreclosure sale. Instantaneously after the sale, the sheriff gives the title/deed to the new owner.

If you have come down on hard times and missed some mortgage payments, there is still a possibility to save your home especially if you have not received a foreclosure notice yet. Return all phone calls and answer any letters regarding your home. Go in and talk to the lender or bank. Often they would much rather work with you instead of foreclosing on your home.

Hiring an attorney familiar with foreclosure law is often a wise move as they can not only act as intermediary at this very stressful time and protect your rights but also work with you on saving your home from foreclosure.

You may be able to pay some of the missed payments and/or set up new monthly payments. At times, the bank will even allow you to refinance to reduce your monthly payments. As cited earlier, banks really do not want to foreclose on a home if they do not have to. Ask queries, seek help on foreclosure law and be aggressive about keeping your home.

Learn more about essential foreclosure law rudiments and other advice if you or someone you know is in a potential foreclosure problem.

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