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home finance, AK Alaskahome finance - AK Alaska: mortgages, loans of any type, refinancing, quick easy online quotes, home equity loans, See if you could save on your mortgage today. Credit Card LoansMortgage Refinancing made easy on the Internet! When you search online for a mortgage refinancing resource you can find a number of useful listings. Examples include a government published booklet/guide on refinancing to getting a free mortgage refinancing quote. A mortgage is basically a long-term loan that you arrange through a bank or other financial institution, or even through the seller of the property. The house and/or property serve as collateral for the loan. A home mortgage is most likely the largest debt you will assume. You typically pay off that debt in monthly payments over a long period of time, most often 15 to 30 years. It can work in a buyers favor in areas where real estate values are rising quickly at a rate of 10 percent a year. A buyer benefits from this appreciation because the purchase price of the home is locked in on the day the buyer signed the rent-to-own contract with the seller. In most agreements, the seller allows a portion of the rent to be applied towards the purchase price, which some lenders consider to be part of the down payment. The amount of rent credited could be 10 percent to 100 percent, based on your contract. Its sad but true that people who agonise about which brand of video to buy will borrow tens of thousands of pounds to buy their home without doing any research at all. Yet choosing the best-value home loan means a difference of thousands of pounds in the years to come. It is one of the most important financial decisions you will ever make. Know how interest rates affect your payment The interest rate on a loan is used to calculate your monthly payment. The higher the interest rate, the higher your monthly payment. The lower the interest rate, the lower your monthly payment. Simple? Yes, but abstract until you see it applied to your loan. See our monthly payment calculator for a demonstration of how this works. Ask for referrals If youre staying in an area you know, ask friends and family if they can recommend someone to you. If youre moving to a new area, ask the Better Business Bureau or the Chamber of Commerce for the names of brokers in your new town that are members of their organizations. Call at least five of them and actually meet at least three. It is normal for lenders to charge up-front fees in the form of booking and/or arrangement fees. In addition lenders frequently apply an Early Redemption Charge (ERC) for fixed rate mortgages. This acts as a ‘lock-in’ making an often heavy charge for borrowers paying off their mortgage early. Watch out – the ERC can sometimes last longer than the fixed rate period e.g. a 3 year fixed rate with a 5 year ERC. Note that the loan proceeds cannot be used to purchase additional stock. Land registry fee £100 Other searches from £70 Local authority search fee In London £100 Rest of England and Wales from £60 Stamp duty properties worth less than £60,000 nothing properties worth from £60,000-£250,000 1% of purchase price properties worth more than £250,000 2.5% of purchase price No Overhang Selecting the No overhang option means that the mortgage schemes on screen will allow you to repay the loan without penalty once the benefit period has ended i.e. the mortgage does have an Early Redemption Charge but it does not last longer than the fixed, capped or discount period. This means that a mortgage with, for example, a discount to 31st January 2006 will have a redemption charge to either the same date or a date prior to this. Homeowners insurance -- You must insure your property in order to obtain a mortgage. You can get an estimate of insurance costs from your insurance agent or a major insurance company in the area where you are house hunting. Be sure to inquire about special requirements for hazard insurance, such as mandatory coverage for floods, earthquakes, or windstorms in coastal areas. If you put down less than 20 percent of your homes value, you also will have to pay private mortgage insurance (PMI). The greatest disadvantage of FHA home loans is the upfront mortgage insurance premium (MIP). On a 30 or 15 year FHA home loan that equals to 1.50% of the loan amount in addition to the 0.5% annual renewal premium that a borrower will pay for the life of the loan. In addition, FHA limits the amount a borrower can borrower. Down the road, though, as this practice becomes more widespread, you may not only be able to type in the city and state, but the neighborhood, and several dozen possibilities will come up. Its only a matter of time before this happens. When it does, the real estate industry will very likely begin undergoing some changes. Foreclosure -- Another option in finding a better price is a foreclosure home. This is one in which the previous owner could not make the payments, so the mortgage company or note holder has taken possession of the house. The good news is that lenders over the last couple of years have become increasingly willing to finance as much as 95% or even 97% of a home. The reason: They can now unload the risk of such loans onto somebody else. To limit their exposure, many lenders regularly sell their loans to the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), which then bundles them into securities which are eventually sold to investors. It used to be that Fannie Mae only would buy loans for 80% financing. But it recently standardized the lending criteria for 97% financing and will now buy these loans, making lenders much more willing to provide them to you. Its now common for first-time buyers to put down only 5%, or $7,500 on a $150,000 loan. What else will I have to pay for? Special deals usually have an application fee of around £250-£300. You will also have to pay for a survey or valuation. Then there are your legal fees. Dont be tempted to cut corners and rely on the cheap valuation; its not detailed enough for you to make an informed decision on the state of your dream home. Most rent-to-own options require some down payment to secure the agreement, which is not refundable in case the renter decides not to buy. Homeowners who would agree to a lease-purchase option include people who have had property on the market longer than they wish or owners who had to move and want the house to be lived in. The owner benefits with rental income to help pay the carrying costs of the home, and the strong possibility of selling the house when the contract expires. Heres how it works. Under the 80-10-10 plan, the 10 percent down payment on a $100,000 house is $10,000. The first mortgage is $80,000 at 7.50 percent, which comes to a monthly payment of $559. The second mortgage for $10,000 has a 9.50 percent interest rate, making a monthly payment of $84. Total monthly payments of the two loans: $643. Theyre not as daunting as they sound. The first is just the percentage of your gross monthly income that youll need to spend on housing expenses after you buy the new home. It includes your mortgage payment, taxes, insurance and maintenance. Lenders will want to see a ratio of 28% or lower. The total-obligation ratio, meanwhile, is the portion of your income that goes to covering both your housing expenses and any other obligations, such as credit cards, car loans and child support. There, your lender will want to see a ratio of 36% or lower. Both of these ratios are often negotiable upward. Discounted Rate Mortgage SET A DATE: Next to the steps you are ready to take, place a realistic date by when you will take the action or actions. Once these steps have been completed, go to the next value and repeat the process. BRINGING INTEGRITY TO WORK: This whole process is an exercise in integrity because you will be bringing your values to the workplace. In other words, your work will be consistent with who you are, the most profound and deepest level of integrity. A natural by-product of such a process is workability. Even though the process can be challenging, it is ultimately very rewarding. You will be injecting your values into the work you do and in the process taking much of the lifestyle driven motivation away. With interest rates still at relatively low levels, many lenders will encourage you to take out a home-equity line of credit on your primary residence to fund all or part of your second-home purchase. Watch your step here. Most home-equity lines of credit float a point or two higher than the prime rate, so you could end up repaying this piece at a much higher interest rate than if you had simply taken a mortgage for the entire amount. Plus, unlike mortgage interest, which is deductible on up to $1 million of debt on your first and second homes combined, the home-equity cap is $100,000. (You get a break on $1.1 million total.) In the past few years, so called buyers brokers have become more popular in certain parts of the country. Unlike traditional real estate agents, they work for -- and are often paid by -- the buyer. They are supposed to help assure you get the best deal. They can be invaluable if you are moving to a town or part of the country you are unfamiliar with or have little time for house-hunting. Like a regular broker they are a font of listings. Is an ARM For You? If you plan to be in the house for less than five years, it may be worth paying the lower interest rate on an ARM vs. a fixed-rate mortgage. Biweekly Mortgage This is a fixed-rate mortgage where the monthly payment amount is split into two payments scheduled every two weeks. This results in 13 payments each year, which shortens the length of the 30-year loan to 18 or 19 years, and greatly reduces the amount of interest paid on the mortgage. |