Archive for September, 2009

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Loan Modification: Know These Terms

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

Almost everyone is familiar with how a mortgage works and what the general terms are that are associated with it.  Terms like mortgage amortization, interest rates and loan programs are pretty common knowledge. When you introduce some of the terms associated with loan modfication, most people aren’t as knowledgeable.  That is one of the primary reasons that the term loan modification is so confusing for many homeowners who are looking for a loan modification attorney to help them.

 

Luckily you don’t have to be a financial expert to learn about loan modifications. Below are just a few of the important terms related to loan modification.

Debt-to-Income Ratio: Also sometimes called by industry professionals as DTI. Your debt-to-income ratio is the amount of money that you pay towards your total debts compared to your income. FHA guidelines dictate that generally speaking your debt to income ratios should be 29% on the front (mortgage debt only)and 43% on the back (total debt).

Deed-in-Lieu: Also sometimes called Deed-in-Lieu-of-Foreclosure. This means that rather than a foreclosure, the lender agrees to accept you to deed the property back to them in exchange for not foreclosing on the property.

Fair Market Value: This is what the lender will arrive at where they will be willing to sell the hosue in a short sale. FMV is usually arrived at by ordering a Broker Price Opinion (BPO) from a local real estate broker.

Foreclosure: Depending on what state you live in, the foreclosure process will be different.  Generally speaking, a foreclosure is where your property is sold and the proceeds go to the lender which will allow them to recover part of the loss on your loan.

Forbearance: Forbearance is a temporary solution for borrowers who are having trouble making their mortgage payment and is an agreement where the lender agrees to revise the monthly payment for a period of time to allow the borrower to “catch up”. Forbearance may involve any number of options including lowering your monthly mortgage payment or even agreeing to suspend your mortgage payment for a period of time.

Principal Balance Reduction: When a lender agrees to reduce the amount of money that you owe as a way to reduce your mortgage payment, this is called a principal reduction. Principal reductions are not very popular with lenders and most will offer a different type of loan modification first.

Short sale: Short sales are a common alternative to foreclosure.When a home is “short sold” it means that the home is sold at less than the balance of the mortgage and all proceeds go to the lender. One of the reasons that short selling a house is popular is because it is less damaging to your credit and will let you buy a house again faster than a foreclosure will.

 

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Bulk REO Investing Tips

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

With more foreclosures now than ever before, America’s weak real estate market seems to set new dismal records each month. However, opportunistic real estate investment professionals are turning the recession into great profits with a bit of creativity.

The new opportunity is known as ‘Bulk REO Investing’ or ‘REO Package Investing’ and it’s a huge opportunity.

Foreclosures are at the heart of the Bulk REO business, so let’s consider the foreclosure process.

Understanding the notion of Bulk REO’s requires understanding of the foreclosure process.

When a home owner begins to miss payments on their mortgage, the lender begins to send late/overdue notices to the home owner. Following a period of time determined by the lender, formal foreclosure proceedings begin. ‘Pre foreclosure’ is the name given to the time between implementation of the foreclosure proceedings and the public auction.

The defaulted property is ultimately auctioned, thus completing the foreclosure process. If there are no buyers at the foreclosure auction, the lender regains title to the property. The lender then categorizes the property as ‘Real Estate Owned’ – or ‘REO’ for short.

Lenders have no interest in owning property, and thus usually opt to list their REO properties with a local real estate broker in hopes of a retail sale. However, lenders are increasingly willing to take much less than their REO asset is actually worth. But the price of receiving such great pricing is the need to purchase multiple REO properties (a ‘package’) rather than individual properties.

Qualified real estate investors are increasingly finding once-in-a-lifetime opportunities in these REO packages. REO packages are easiest to buy and sell with a well regarded source of financing in place. Some sources of funding for these transactions are: personal funds, hard money lenders, commercial lenders and non-conventional sources such as private investors and hedge funds. Additionally, one man is becoming very well known in the field of bulk REO investing, and his name is Sal Buscemi of Dandrew Capital Partners, a hedge fund in New York.

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FHA Streamline Refinance: No Appraisal Required?

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

One of the more popular options for people with an FHA loan is the FHA streamline refinance program. When you participate in the FHA streamline program, you can get a lower interest rate that will give you a lower monthly mortgage payment – and you don’t have to qualify for the program the same way you originally got your loan, it is much easier.

FHA Streamlines: Is An Appraisal Always Required

The main criteria for participating in the FHA streamline mortgage refinancing program are that you must live in the property and that you can’t have more than two, thirty day late payments on your mortgage in the last 12 months.

Assuming that you live in your house and that you have less than 2 thirty day late payments in the last 12 months you are eligible to participate in the FHA refinance streamline program and will probably need an appraisal unless you can qualify for the FHA streamline refinance without appraisal.

The only way that you will need an appraisal when you go through the FHA streamline refiance program is if your new total loan amount exceeds your original loan amount by 1.5% of your loan amount. If your original balance was $200,000 then FHA will require an appraisal when you go through the streamline program if your new total loan amount is greater than $203,000.

How Much Are Closing Costs For FHA Streamline Refinancing

There are costs involved with the FHA streamline refinancing program , but they can either be rolled into your loan or paid by your lender who will then give you a higher interest rate. This is also known as the FHA streamline refinance with no out of pocket closing costs or the FHA streamline program with no closing costs.

Most often, when a person participates in the FHA streamline program, they will still be in a FHA 30 year fixed rate loan with an interest rate that is significantly lower than what they had before.A simple reduction in interest rate can easily translate into hundreds of dollars in savings each month and thousands of dollars in savings over the life of the loan. Obviously, the FHA streamline program is popular only when interest rates have fallen to the point where it makes sense for people to streamline.

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How To Stop Foreclosure – 3 Legitimate Solutions

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

A superb resource: Stop Foreclosure In Houston

To Stop Foreclosure in nearly any city in the United States of America, there are basically only a few legitimate options. Some of these you’ll know, and some will be brand new to you.

Here are a few directions you can take:

  • Sell your house prior to the foreclosure auction. The value of this idea will vary heavily depending on the nature and quality of your local real estate market. If you’re in a market that still has very slow resale rates, selling your home could be a challenge. Ask a local real estate agent to determine the average number of days on the market for properties in your area.
  • Initiate a loan modification. A loan modification is a process through which your lender changes the payment terms of your loan to more closely match your ability to pay. While this is not a guarantee, loan modifications have become more popular in the last 12 months.
  • Refinance the property. If you are not yet fully into the foreclosure process but have reason to expect you will fall behind on your payments, it may be wise to try to refinance your mortgage to a lower rate. If your property is worth less than the balance of the mortgage, you’ll want to inquire regarding a “short refinance”, which is when a lender forgives a portion of the debt against you in order for you to refinance your property and pay off the remainder of the debt you owe.

When you’re trying to stop a foreclosure, the key is fast action.

Warning: Be very wary of people who aggressively attempt to purchase your home for investment purposes. While there are many legitimate real estate investors, there has been a significant amount of fraud with “Stop Foreclosure” scams, and it is wise to be very, very careful.

Please remember: The crisis you now face will soon be over. As a foreclosure survivor myself, I’d like to encourage you to remain hopeful, and to understand that your future does not equal your past!

Thanks for reading this information about how to stop foreclosure. I hope you’ve found value here.

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Real Estate Investing Tips & Techniques

Wednesday, September 30th, 2009

A number of things likely come to mind when you think of real estate investing. You may think of real estate investing as real estate portfolios and real estate retirement plans, or you might focus on short sales, bulk reo investing and virtual real estate investing. Likely you also wonder how these things will factor into your life as a real estate investor in the current economy.

There is a lot to learn about real estate investing. The best way to get the most out of your real estate investing education is to be familiar with some basic information ahead of time. Whether your target is short sales, bulk reo sales, virtual real estate or improving real estate investor abilities, you need to know some real estate investing basics. You should review these three real estate investing basics to learn things even some experts do not know:

1. You will always end up with a positive yield when you invest in real estate investing education. You can create thousands of dollars in potential wealth with each real estate deal. Getting the wealth is the key to your success. Knowing more about real estate betters your odds of success when you do a real estate deal. A small investment in education has the ability to yield big results when it is implemented.

2. Real estate investing success is possible in any economy. Lots of people believe that real estate success is only possible in a booming economy. In reality, poor economies are great for real estate investors. Likely you will be able to find properties at deep discounts. You might also find deals that simply would not exist in a booming economy. Real estate investing may also turn the tide for a poor economy. Short sales, bulk reo sales and virtual real estate all thrive when the economy is less than thriving. You will be able to save yourself and others from serious financial difficulties if you know how to do these deals.

3. You do not need a lot of money to be a successful real estate investor. You can make real estate investing a success regardless of how much money you have. There are many deals that will let you use other people’s money to do them. Private lenders will let you use their money if they know that you are a good investment. The best way to be a good investment is to know as much as possible about real estate investing. This will help you represent yourself as a good investment to private lenders who do not know how to make money in real estate investing.

Real estate investing is a good way to generate a great deal of wealth. You will be able to create an income no matter what the economy. Using knowledge of real estate investing, short sales, bulk reo sales and virtual real estate you will be able to create success for yourself. You will be helped to succeed as a real estate investor by knowing real estate investing basics.

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{How to Choose The Perfect Home Improvement Financing|Choosing The Perfect Home Improvement Financing|How to Choose The Right Home Improvement Financing|How to Choosing The Right Home Improvement Financing}

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

Purchasing a brand new house or renovating your old one is both going to cost you a lot and you know it. Not everybody can afford to pay for these expenses straight out of their pocket. This is why many people have started searching for home financing solutions, as no matter what your income level may be, there is always some lender who would be willing to help you out with some good home financing.

You need to take certain conditions into account prior to taking home financing loan. For instance monthly repayment and interest rate will depend on the interval of the loan and your capacity to pay back the loan. Because the loan will attract high interest rate if it is spread for a longer period. All the same, you will still enjoy low monthly repayment. Taking the decision to take home improvement loan in a rush might hurt you in the long run. Hence it is vital to carefully think about your choice before accepting it. It is important to wisely think about how long you want the loan for.

Home financing can be categorized in to two loan types; the secured and the unsecured. Unsecured loans are more like personal loans where the loan isn’t secured against an individual’s property. It is usually given by checking a person’s credit score. People needing home financing for smaller projects opt for this kind of loan. The interest rates fluctuate depending on the market conditions.   

Secured loans are different from the unsecure loans. These loans are granted against an individual’s property or other assets they may have. The danger behind these type of secured loans is that when the lender notes that you have a habit of not making the payments on time, the likelihood of your assets being seized is very much higher.

There is also the home improvement mortgage refinance and home equity loans that an individual could get if the above methods do not work. Home improvement mortgage refinance is usually taken by people who want a loan to renovate their house. The loan period is for quite a long time and is usually given at a fixed rate.

The latter type of loan which is the home equity loan, is given against the equity of the home. A lump sum is usually given for the renovation process. Like secured loans, these types of loans have the risk of the assets getting seized.

Before checking on home financing solutions, you should have a rough picture about your final costs such as the costs associated with the renovation. Always make sure you can meet the expense of the repayments. You obviously don’t want to end up in more financial trouble. Getting your loan could be easy if you keep the above in mind.

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You should get a Standard Bank home loan

Monday, September 28th, 2009

Getting a home loan was considered a nightmare in the past but not any more because now Standard Bank offers you home loans which have a simpler process and with less paper work. When you work with standard bank you’d be sharing your success story and not your nightmare story with your friends.

When you take Standard Bank bonds, you can use it to either build your own home or buy one that is already built. The main concern of Standard Bank is that they should help buyers get the funds they need and they show this by leaving the option of buying or building home to their customers. You can choose to contact the local office of Standard Bank and work with them, or you can apply online for a home loan, and save yourself the trouble of a personal visit to the local office.

People find it difficult to search for a home loan which is all financed. The total value of the home can be thousands of dollars but they themselves have to find one. Also, they have to opt for a second loan to pay that difference and this option put them in another debt to repay each month. Standard Bank provides lot of solutions to this problem that is faced by common man. While most of the banks lend only 80% of the value of the home, Standard Bank lends 95% of the value, which is 15% more. You can buy the home now with this difference instead of saving for that other 20% for more years.

Though it is not required of them, insurance companies offer excellent protection plans for their customers who have obtained a home loan from them. It will be worth your while to look up the various types of coverage your insurance provider has to offer. You can choose the kind of protection that will suit you without feeling compelled to opt for such packages. Some insurance companies force their customers to take on additional coverage that they do not really want to have. These additional benefits include coverage of your home loan in the even of death, accident or sickness. Since one can never be sure of what can happen in the future, it might be a good idea to have oneself protected against such unexpected happenings, and save you some anxiety. The cost of the premium for such coverage will depend on how much of the home loan is yet to be paid. Your premium will be reduced as you make your regular payments towards the loan.

In the home loan industry, Standard Bank has an excellent rating. Not only do they continually offer new benefits to their existing customers, such as making it easy to refinance for a lower rate or change the terms of loans, they also offer flexibility to new customers.

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All you need to know about second home loans

Monday, September 28th, 2009

The second mortgage on home loans is definitely not exceptional. If you find yourself stranded and not totally enlightened or informative of the terms or its benefits then you have come to the right place; this article is just what you are looking for. We will share and explain all the advantages from a loan takers perspective.

If we have a property such as house there are many loans available on this property. The first registered loan that you take is called first mortgage, subsequently if you take another registered loan on this property it is called second mortgage, there are many benefits for second mortgage loan than other type of loans. In the loan market many lenders are willing to give loans for real estate. If you have both first and second mortgage on the same property and if you cannot repay the loan amount, in this case the first mortgage will be recovered first and then the second mortgage. This means there will be so much time to repay second mortgage.

You can actually procure second home loans way more conveniently than the first mortgage, especially since by this time; you already have a loan repayment record that streamlines the process. In fact in some cases, you can procure instantaneous loan. However, there are several other advantages of the scheme as well. First one of them is tax deduction that you can get on the interest that is being paid for this mortgage, which in turn renders this mortgage more profitable than the other types of loans like personal loans. This is also because any personal loan would require a lot of time and charge higher rates of interest sans tax benefits. Moreover, the rates on second mortgages are generally negotiable and it entirely depends on your home equity.

If for some reason you would like to repay your first mortgage the best way to do so would be by taking a second mortgage and diverting the funds that you receive to pay off the first mortgage. If you intend to buy a new property with the second mortgage you can do so without paying the PMI. The procedure to do so involves using your first mortgage to buy the property at LTV (loan to value) ratio and then takes a second mortgage to clear off the debts of the first mortgage. This is the best way to avoid paying the PMI.

If the circumstances were such that you are badly in need of capital, but are unaware of how to go about raising it, your best possible option would be to apply for one more mortgage on your home. A large percentage of people commit the error of looking out for other types of loans to meet their capital needs and when they are unsuccessful in obtaining a loan they miss out on quite a few profitable opportunities. A second mortgage is a fast and trouble free method of making sure that you never let go a chance to earn a profit.

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How To Stop Foreclosure – 3 Legitimate Solutions

Monday, September 28th, 2009

A great resource: Stop Foreclosure Houston

To Stop Foreclosure in nearly any city in the United States of America, there are basically only a few legitimate options. Some of these you’ll know, and some will be brand new to you.

Here are a few directions you can take:

  • Sell your house prior to the foreclosure auction. The value of this idea will vary heavily depending on the nature and quality of your local real estate market. If you’re in a market that still has very slow resale rates, selling your home could be a challenge. Ask a local real estate agent to determine the average number of days on the market for properties in your area.
  • Initiate a loan modification. A loan modification is a process through which your lender changes the payment terms of your loan to more closely match your ability to pay. While this is not a guarantee, loan modifications have become more popular in the last 12 months.
  • Refinance the property. If you are not yet fully into the foreclosure process but have reason to expect you will fall behind on your payments, it may be wise to try to refinance your mortgage to a lower rate. If your property is worth less than the balance of the mortgage, you’ll want to inquire regarding a “short refinance”, which is when a lender forgives a portion of the debt against you in order for you to refinance your property and pay off the remainder of the debt you owe.

When you’re trying to stop a foreclosure, the key is fast action.

Warning: Be very wary of people who aggressively attempt to purchase your home for investment purposes. While there are many legitimate real estate investors, there has been a significant amount of fraud with “Stop Foreclosure” scams, and it is wise to be very, very careful.

Please remember: The crisis you now face will soon be over. As a foreclosure survivor myself, I’d like to encourage you to remain hopeful, and to understand that your future does not equal your past!

Thanks for reading this information about how to stop foreclosure. I hope you’ve found value here.

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How To Stop Foreclosure – 3 Legitimate Solutions

Monday, September 28th, 2009

A superb resource: http://realestate.bryanellis.com/1565/stop-foreclosure-in-houston-3-legitimate-solutions/

To Stop Foreclosure in nearly any city in the United States of America, there are basically only a few legitimate options. Some of these you’ll know, and some will be brand new to you.

Here are a few directions you can take:

  • Sell your house prior to the foreclosure auction. The value of this idea will vary heavily depending on the nature and quality of your local real estate market. If you’re in a market that still has very slow resale rates, selling your home could be a challenge. Ask a local real estate agent to determine the average number of days on the market for properties in your area.
  • Initiate a loan modification. A loan modification is a process through which your lender changes the payment terms of your loan to more closely match your ability to pay. While this is not a guarantee, loan modifications have become more popular in the last 12 months.
  • Refinance the property. If you are not yet fully into the foreclosure process but have reason to expect you will fall behind on your payments, it may be wise to try to refinance your mortgage to a lower rate. If your property is worth less than the balance of the mortgage, you’ll want to inquire regarding a “short refinance”, which is when a lender forgives a portion of the debt against you in order for you to refinance your property and pay off the remainder of the debt you owe.

When you’re trying to stop a foreclosure, the key is fast action.

Warning: Be very wary of people who aggressively attempt to purchase your home for investment purposes. While there are many legitimate real estate investors, there has been a significant amount of fraud with “Stop Foreclosure” scams, and it is wise to be very, very careful.

Please remember: The crisis you now face will soon be over. As a foreclosure survivor myself, I’d like to encourage you to remain hopeful, and to understand that your future does not equal your past!

Thanks for reading this information about how to stop foreclosure. I hope you’ve found value here.

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Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

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