Blog of BestWebsites.com.my

It used to be the first choice of most borrowers, because since the total payments are spread over a longer period of time with the interest rate set for the entire time of the mortgage. 30 year home loan rates are an industry standard but is it the right choice for you?

The 30 year home loan is an industry standard, but is it the right choice for you?  Because the total payments are spread over a longer period of time and the interest rate set for the entire time of the mortgage.  This was the first choice of most home owners.

As we mentioned, the plus side for a 30 year home loan is lower monthly payments.  This attraction is somewhat dimmed by the fact that you pay thousands extra in interest.  But, your interest is 100% tax deductible which does lower your after tax cost.  It offers you some flexibility so that if your financial situation changes and you have more money you can pay it off in less than 30 years, this while keeping the low monthly payments.  Your payments are smaller so in reality you can purchase a larger roomier home.

To show an example of the interest difference between 30 year home loan rates and one of the other rates.  On a 30 year, 100,000 dollar loan using 7% interest rate your monthly payment of interest and principle would be $665.30 dollars.  Over the next 30 years you will have paid $139,511.04 in interest alone.  Now with a 15 year home loan rate on the same amount you will pay $871.11 per month and over the next 15 years, you would pay $56,799 in interest.  This would save you $82,712 dollars.

If you have the will power to invest the savings from the monthly payments, it still could be a good choice to go with the 30 year mortgage.  Especially if you can find an investment that the long term payoff matches or exceeds what you would save in a 15 year mortgage.  Another factor to consider is how fast you want to accrue equity in your home or to own it out right.  30 year home loan rates take much longer to build equity.

30 year home loan rates are certainly attractive and the vast majority of home buyers get 30-year loans because that is the longest home loan available today.  Experts agree if they could get a 35- or 40-year loan, they probably would.  There are many other options to consider.  Probably the biggest question you have to ask yourself when considering a loan is what are your financial goals?  What loan plan will help you the most to reach that goal?  It is clearly to your advantage to look into other loan options for the best loan available for you and your financial goals.  It may surprise you that because of your personal situation there may be other plans more suitable for you.

Mortgage Information

Powered by Qumana

It’s almost never too late to start exercising and improve your health, according to researchers. A study published in Heart suggests couch potatoes who start exercising in later life can still significantly cut their chances of developing coronary artery disease.

The authors base their findings on 312 adults between the ages of 40 and 68 who had confirmed coronary artery disease and 479 volunteers matched for age and sex.

Each participant was interviewed about their level of physical activity in early adulthood, classified as the period between 20 and 39, and in late adulthood, defined as the period after the age of 40.

Unsurprisingly, known risk factors for coronary heart disease, including smoking, diabetes, and high blood pressure tended to be more common among those with confirmed disease.

Around half of those with heart disease and seven out of 10 of the healthy volunteers said that they had been moderately or very physically active in younger and older adulthood.

But around one in 10 of those with confirmed disease and around one in 20 of the healthy volunteers confessed to having enjoyed a lifetime of physical inactivity.

More

Tags: exercise, fitness program

Powered by Qumana

By Jeff Brown

Sunday, June 4, 2006

With interest rates rising, fewer people are applying for new mortgages — just as you’d expect.

But here’s a worrisome surprise: More of the applicants are seeking adjustable-rate mortgages that could saddle them with bigger monthly payments if rates keep going up.

Clearly, many borrowers are using adjustable loans, or ARMs, to borrow more than they could with fixed ones. That means they may be taking on more debt than they should.

And I suspect some are placing a risky bet that rates will fall in a year or two, reducing monthly payments on ARMs taken out today. Given past patterns, however, it could be several years before rates fall substantially below where they are today, and they could rise in the meantime.

Today’s ARMs are a bad deal. If you’re shopping for a mortgage, the standard 30-year, fixed-rate type is almost certainly your best bet. It charges the same rate for its entire term — up to 30 years.

More

Tags: adjustable-rate mortgages

Powered by Qumana

A study of 100,000 case files found that home buyers who take out payment-option loans tend to have below-average credit scores.

KENNETH HARNEY

They are the new breed of ”affordability” mortgages, and home buyers in high-cost real estate markets can’t get enough of them: interest-only and ”payment-option” plans that cut monthly payments sharply in the early years of a loan.

Lenders have marketed both types of mortgages aggressively — often to people who need to stretch their incomes to afford a home purchase — but have insisted that their borrowers have solid credit histories, excellent credit scores and fully understand the possible payment-shock risks once payments reset in a few years. In some parts of the country, the numbers of interest-only and payment-option loans have soared from single-digit market shares two years ago to more than 50 percent in 2005.

But federal regulators worry that all is not well: Too few borrowers, they say, really comprehend the potential risks involved and have a solid grasp of how the loans work. Within weeks, a team of regulators led by the Federal Reserve and the Comptroller of the Currency is expected to issue new guidelines for mortgage lenders that could reduce the number of interest-only and payment-option loans being offered.

More

Powered by Qumana

By LAURA T. COFFEY
Published June 18, 2006

Have you heard about reverse mortgages and wondered how they work? Such loans are an alternative to selling your home or borrowing against your home if you need money. Reverse mortgages allow homeowners to convert their home equity into cash without having to move or assume extra debt. They’re not for everyone, though. Consider these tips:

1. Your age matters. For most reverse mort-gages, a borrower must be at least 62 and must live in the home as a principal residence. Generally, the older you are and the more valuable your home is, the more money you can tap.

2. Learn how the loans work. Most reverse mortgages require no repayment as long as you live in your home. The loan must be repaid in full, along with interest, when the last living borrower dies, sells the home or moves away.

More

Tags: reverse mortgages, loans

Powered by Qumana

Q: My husband and I hope to retire in 2011 when we will be 62, and we would like to get a reverse mortgage to help pay for our retirement. What do you think?

A: Reverse mortgages are a mixed bag — a great fallback for funding retirement, but they charge rather high fees. Also, you could get a good deal more money out of a reverse mortgage if you waited until you were 10 or 20 years older.

Reversers are loans that use the property as collateral, just like regular mortgages and home-equity loans.

Because the money is a loan rather than income or capital gains, it is tax free.

More

Tags: mortgages, reverse mortgages, reversers

Powered by Qumana

By Gene Maddaus
Daily Breeze

But what’s the city of Gardena doing on there?

More

Powered by Qumana

By Pat Beall

Palm Beach Post Staff Writer

Sunday, June 18, 2006

RIVIERA BEACH — Winston Williams’ 1950s-era home became the focus of a series of pingpong mortgages starting in 1998, when he got a call from Beneficial Finance.

"I never called them," said Williams, standing in his meticulously clean living room, a child’s stuffed bear on the cloth-covered couch. "They called me."

Williams was working two jobs, and the offer of a $63,000 line of credit — a mortgage on his Riviera Beach home — was welcome cash.

Two years later, another lender came calling. Upland Mortgage, a subsidiary of Pennsylvania finance giant ABFS, offered a $78,200 refinance deal.

More

Powered by Qumana

WASHINGTON — Be afraid. Be very afraid.

If you used an interest-only or so-called "option" mortgage to stretch into an unaffordable house in the last year or two, you could be facing some dark times.

Those loans were designed for helping people get into houses with the smallest amount of initial cash flow. They were aimed at keeping the housing market and refi deals booming through the first wave of interest-rate increases that were starting to disqualify some buyers and borrowers.

But now some of those buyers could have worse problems than missing out on the home of their dreams. As mortgage rates continue to rise and those creative mortgages move past their introductory teaser rates, the monthly payments on those mortgages are moving up fast. In many cases, they are moving up faster than the value of the home and faster than the owner’s ability to keep up with payments.

"These nontraditional mortgages are going to create a lot of human misery in the next several years," says Stephen Brobeck, executive director of the Consumer Federation of America.

More

Powered by Qumana

By WINSLOW MASON JR.
Bucks County Courier Times

Fran and Robert Ciaccia of Bristol Township say they’re spending their senior years worry free.

The couple recently took out a reverse mortgage loan that allowed them to pay off their existing mortgage, buy a recreational vehicle and put some money aside for retirement.

Reverse mortgages are loans specifically for people ages 62 and older. They allow seniors to borrow money based on their home’s equity and get the cash now. The loans are repaid when the house is sold.

“We’re now able to travel, go out to dinner and not spend our days worrying about how we’re going to pay for our retirement,” Fran Ciaccia said.

More

Powered by Qumana