Who needs a mortgage? Well, nearly everyone in North America who plans to own their own home. Interestingly enough, when you look at the Latin roots of the word “mortgage”, you’ll find two terms - mortuus which means death, and gage which means grip. So the term “mortgage” actually means death grip pretty fitting when you think about it.
Nobody WANTS a mortgage, but most people do find themselves needing one in order to purchase a home. Very few people would consider themselves “mortgage experts” however - and most of those who would call themselves that are the ones selling a mortgagewhich means that they’re probably not your best bet for solid advice.
When looking for a mortgage, many creatively named fees tend to show up, such as an “underwriting fee”, a “document review fee”, “loan preparation or origination” fee, and more. These fees are unnecessary, and often not included in a mortgage broker’s ‘good faith’ assessments beforehand. Depending on your broker, they may present you with the new fees in addition to your mortgage as indicated in their assessment, and give you the “take it or leave it” ultimatum.
By that point, most people are either tired and frustrated with the mortgage shopping process, or they feel that they have no other option, and are concerned that they may not get the house they’ve set their hearts on if they keep looking elsewhere, so they accept the additional charges.
In most cases, your best bet is to deal with a direct lender rather than through a middleman like a mortgage broker. Look for a no-cost, no-fee mortgage, and ensure that all fees are reflected on the “good faith” assessment performed by your lender before you accept the mortgage.
The last point to keep in mind is the length of the mortgage - a longer mortgage means lower monthly payments but more money out of your payment overall. So the faster you can afford to pay off your mortgage, the better - comparing a $300,000 mortgage at 6.5% with a 25-year term to the same mortgage with a 40-year term, the monthly payment would be around $2,000 and the total interest payments would be around $300,000 in the 25-year mortgage.
In the 40-year mortgage, monthly payments would be around $1,750, but the total interest paid out would top $534,000. So shorter is better. There are many pitfalls when finding a mortgage, but with some time and effort there are resources available to help you. Be sure to look around online for more info on effective mortgage shopping.
Seymore Hennigan has worked in finance for many years. When he is not crunching numbers or advising his family and friends on their investments, he writes for mortgageguide101.com - an online guide to mortgage lenders, interest rates, mortgage calculators and more.
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Mortgage Prepaying
Mortgage prepaying consists on cancelling part or the total amount of the mortgage loan remaining debt. If the type of mortgage loan lets you pay part of the principal and not only interests, then you’ll be saving money by prepaying your mortgage.
The reason why prepaying part of the principal can save you thousands of dollars is that interests are calculated as a percentage over the principal. If the loan’s capital is reduced, the interests charged will also be reduced.
Since the interests are the lender’s earnings, many lenders penalize these practices either by not letting you prepay the mortgage or by charging prepaying fees in order to discourage these practices.
Home Equity Lines of Credit
The difference between the property’s value and the remaining of the home loan debt constitutes equity. And the equity you’ve build on your home since the mortgage loan was agreed, can be used to obtain further finance in the form of a home equity loan or line of credit.
A home equity line of credit is guaranteed with the same asset as the mortgage loan. This line of credit usually carries lower variable interest rates which let’s you take advantage of good market conditions and get money at probably the lowest rates on the private financial market.
Combining Both
Prepaying itself let’s you save thousands of dollars in interests. But in order to do so you need to save a significant amount of money and make a lump mortgage payment every 4 or 6 months in order to reduce the principal. You’ll then get fewer interests and thus, lower monthly payments that will let you save even more money each month.
However, you can’t always save enough money to make such payments and if you want to have any reliability in your finances, you’ll probably want to have an extra amount available for any unexpected situation.
At this point is when home equity lines of credit come in handy. Since they carry low interest rates, these lines of credit are the perfect solution for solving the problem of unexpected situations. Even if you haven’t save enough money, you can turn to them in order to get extra money and make a mortgage payment to keep canceling the principal.
You’ll then destine the extra money to repay the amount you borrowed from your home equity line of credit. Moreover, if anything unexpected comes to happen you’ll have more cash available on your line of credit and won’t have to apply for a loan and wait to be approved.
In order to see if this is the solution for you, you need to go through your mortgage loan terms and check if there are any penalizations for prepaying your home loan. Then compare the amount you’d save on interests with the prepaying fees and the home equity line of credit costs. If the overall transaction saves you at least a couple of thousands and reduces your mortgage length, then seize the opportunity and start prepaying your home loan.
Mary Wise, a professional consultant with twenty years in the financial field, helps people in the process of securing personal loans, mortgage, refinance or consolidation loans and preventing consumers from falling into the hands of fraudulent lenders.
You can visit her site and get aid for Mortgage Loans regardless of your credit. If the link doesn’t work, just copy badcreditloanservices.com and paste it in your browser’s address bar.
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