Showing posts with label home refinance calculator. Show all posts
Showing posts with label home refinance calculator. Show all posts

Step By Step How Do You Buy A House?

Tuesday, December 16, 2008 | Labels: , , | |

There is no doubt that the market for houses has been on fire recently. More and more people are taking advantage of low interest rates and easy mortgage loan terms to go from being renters to being home owners. With so many people entering the market, it is inevitable that questions will arise.
There are many things to consider when buying your first home. Some of the most important steps to buy a house are:
Learning the home buying process
Start by learning as much as you can about how the home buying and mortgage application process works. Read as much as you can about buying a home. Check out the many books in your local library that offer hints to first time home buyers. Read financial web sites on the internet for tips for first time home buyers. You may even want to sign up for a class aimed at first time homeowners. Many towns and cities offer these kinds of classes, and they can be a great source of information for the buyer looking for his or her first home.
Find out the pre-qualified price range
It is important to find out how much you can borrow before you start looking for a home. Talk with several mortgage lenders in your area and get pre-qualified for a particular price range. The mortgage lender will be able to help you determine how much you can borrow based on your annual income. In general, mortgage lenders recommend that all home related expenses, including the mortgage payment, insurance premiums and real estate taxes, do not exceed 28% of your monthly income.
Get Pre-approved for mortgage loan
The next step is to get pre-approved for mortgage financing. This is similar to getting pre-qualified for a price range, but it is a more formal process. You will need to supply proof of your income for the pre-approval process to move forward. Most lenders will want to see income tax returns from the past two years as proof of the income you are claiming.
House hunting
After you have been pre-approved for your mortgage loan, it is time to actually start house hunting with a realtor (find out why you need to find a realtor before buying a house?). Your mortgage lender will give you a letter stating that you have been pre-approved for a mortgage and the amount you are authorized to borrow. You will need to present this letter to the real estate agent when you get started. It is important to get pre-approved for a mortgage loan before beginning your home search. The real estate agent and real estate company will be much more willing to work with you if they know you can afford the home you are looking at. In addition, sellers will take your offer much more seriously if it is accompanied by a pre-approval letter from your mortgage lender.
Make an offer
Once you have found a home that meets your needs, it is time to make an offer on the property. You will already know the most you can spend from the pre-approval process, and you probably will have your own ideas on what the property is actually worth. In addition, your real estate agent can guide you through the negotiation process and offer procedures. A copy of your pre-approval letter will be presented as part of the written offer. This will ensure the seller that your offer is legitimate.
Negotiation process
If the seller accepts your first offer, congratulations. Your negotiations are over and you're ready to start preparing for your move. More likely, however, is that the seller will come back with a counter-offer. This negotiation process can go on for a short or long amount of time, depending on factors like the motivation of the seller, the local real estate market, and a host of other factors. The real estate agent will be a good guide through the negotiation process. After all, he or she will have been through this process many times before.
Provide copy of Purchase and Sale Agreement to mortgage broker
After the negotiation process has been completed, you will need to present your mortgage broker with a copy of the Purchase and Sale Agreement for the home.
Work to close the mortgage loan
After presenting the Purchase and Sales Agreement, you will need to work with the mortgage broker to ensure you meet all the conditions required for the closing of the mortgage loan.
Home inspection prior closing
Prior to closing, you will want to make sure to have a thorough home inspection performed by a qualified and certified home inspector. A home inspection will protect you from flaws in the construction and condition of the home that are not obvious to the naked eye. Home inspections can uncover things like foundation cracks, termite infestation and other home quality issues.
Hand over down payment
After the home inspection has been performed and the report has come back clean (or all the items uncovered have been repaired), it is time for the buyer to actually hand over the money for the down payment and sign the loan documents.
Collect the house keyAfter the closing of the loan, the fun part of home buying begins. Your real estate agent will hand over the keys to your new home and you can actually move in and enjoy your beautiful new home. Welcome to moving day!
Read More..

Finance Your Real Estate Investment Properties

Tuesday, November 11, 2008 | Labels: , | |

Unlike traditional residential real estate mortgages, real estate investment financing is way more creative and offers more options than you think. The golden rule in real estate investment is OPM (Other People’s Money).
I have enough money; shouldn’t I buy my real estate investment for cash? No, I absolutely advice against investing large sums of cash into a single real estate investment. There are two reasons why not. First, you give away most of your profits by not leveraging your real estate investment. Second, it is far too risky to put every egg into one basket.
Let me explain the leverage issue for a moment. I will give you an example of a $100,000 investment property that typically increases its value (appreciates) by 7% average a year. Maybe more, maybe less depending where you live. Paying all cash for this property will yield in a 7% appreciation profit plus the net profit from renting the place. Now you’re looking at roughly 15% of returns.
If you’re conservative with your investments you might be satisfied with this kind of a return. These days you might get equal or better returns with other conservative investments minus the hassle of being a landlord. But you don’t mind being a landlord, because you understand and utilize the leveraging method with financing your real estate investment.
With the example above you will make roughly $15,000 a year in profits from your investment. Now let’s take a closer look at what leveraging can do for you. Today a typical real estate investor can get financing as high as 95% - 97% of the purchase price. Occasionally 100% financing is available as well. But this would be totally unfair in this example to compare this with all cash purchasing.
15% return sounds like a lot, but wait till you see this. Let’s assume that the rental income will cover all your expenses including the mortgage payments. Taking the same example from before your net return would be the 7% appreciation profits of your property. This would translate into a $7,000 a year profit. With a 95% financing in place you would get $7,000 return on $5,000 (your 5% down payment) invested. This is a whopping 140%
return on investment.
With the same $100,000 you can go out there and get 20 investment properties, finance 95% of it and make an amazing $140,000 profit a year. This beats the projected $15,000 profits with an all cash transaction any day.
Of course you will have a lot of trouble to get financing for 20 properties in a single year. Typically 5-6 new rental property mortgages are the maximum lenders will allow these days. This is the signal to get creative with your financing structures.
In this case sellers financing would be your key to achieve your goal of maximum leverage of your investment dollars. Despite the message from all these late night infomercials, seller financing is harder to get than they want you to make believe it is.
It all depends on the seller’s ability to offer seller financing and the seller’s motivation. Only about 1 out of 20 properties for sale are able to get seller financing. That means that there’s no mortgage balance on the property. From this narrow selection the seller must be motivated to sell under these conditions. This could be tax reasons, time constraints, personal reasons and many more.
As you can see this translates into a lot of work to achieve your goals. But let me tell you one thing. This separates the tire kicker real estate investors from the real go-getters. Wouldn’t you agree that a little bit of hard work and determination is well worth it to build a real estate empire?
I think it is well worth the trouble and hard work. At the end of the day you keep building your real estate investment portfolio and sooner than later you will be able to cash in.

Read More..

Are you so desperate for a home loan that you are stretching your finances too far?

Tuesday, November 4, 2008 | Labels: , | |

Once you get a quote for a home loan don’t be tempted to take the entire amount if it looks like you overqualified. Most consumers fill out an application for a home loan and hope they can get enough money to buy their dream house.A nice chunk of those consumers also overqualify for their home loans. If go to your local bank, credit union or mortgage broker and you are approved for a $500,000 home loan, they payments might be a bit more than you realistically afford. Use a mortgage calculator to see your real monthly expensesIf you are not good with your money or would prefer to not stretch your finances to the limit to get a home, get your hands on a good mortgage calculator as soon as you get the figures on your home loan. You might think all will be fine as long as you can own your own property. However, you must take into account all of the things that come along with owning a home. Sometimes you can get so caught up with the actual dollar amount of your home loan that you forget the other pieces of your budget.Do you still have cash for entertainment and personal use?Check your budget to see if you still have money to enjoy things like going out, purchasing new furniture, a family vacation once per year and regular manicures and pedicures. Then add in your student loans, car payments, credit card bills, lunches at work and tickets to take your family to baseball games a couple of times every season. You also need money for home maintenance and repairsThere are also the home maintenance issues that are not included when you qualify for a home loan. If you live in a part of the country that’s particularly hot or cold, your heating and air conditioning bill could easily add up to a couple of hundred dollars per month. Your home loan package does not include budgeting for lawnmowers, landscaping and fixing broken windows. Some of these expenses can be put off until a later day, but some of them will require your immediate attention once you move into your home.Know your spending habits to gauge how much debt you can carryIf you are used to living paycheck to paycheck and generally not taking care of your budget as a renter, you will probably carry over some of the same habits to your new home. The best way to avoid a financial disaster is to make your home loan a part of your financial life instead of the centerpiece of your financial life. If you are stressed out about money issues from the very first move in, it is unlikely that you will enjoy your new home or anything else in your life for a long time.
Read More..

Bad Credit? First Time Buyer? You Can Still Get Approved For A Home Mortgage Loan

Sunday, October 19, 2008 | Labels: , , | |

Do you have bad credit that you worry will stop you from being able to apply for a home mortgage loan? Have you given up on the dream of being a home owner? Well don’t. Take comfort in the fact that there are special home mortgage loans that you can apply for, that will make sure your dreams of becoming a home owner are fulfilled!
Home Loans Are Flexible - The first thing you need to keep-in-mind is that home loan mortgages are very flexible – they can be adjusted to meet the needs of any borrower. So, if you have a bad credit history, but circumstances have changed in your life and now you are looking to become a home owner then all you need to do is to find a lender who is willing to lend.


First Look at Companies That Specialize in Bad Credit Mortgages - Bad credit mortgage lenders or otherwise called, subprime lenders, are always the best place to look first. Bad credit mortgage companies specialize in lending to people with less than perfect credit to very bad credit, even if they are first-time buyers. The may charge you extra over the life of the home loan mortgage than would have otherwise been the case had you not had the bad credit history, but that’s why they’re in the business!
Look Online – Check the Internet - The Internet is the wonder of the modern age and with it comes all sorts of answers to previously unanswerable questions. In the case of the Internet, many companies are advertising that they are willing to lend to first-time buyers who have a bad credit history. All you need do is look for them.
Consider an Interest Only Mortgage to Compensate For the Higher Payment - Many home mortgage lenders offer loans to applicants with poor or bad credit history for interest only home loan mortgages. With an interest only home loan, the borrower is only required to pay the interest part of the home loan mortgage. The principal amount is due years later, depending on which type of loan you get. This kind of loan can give you the time to fix your credit and qualify for a better interest rate.You can be approved for a home loan even with adverse credit problems like bankruptcy, foreclosure and other problems that cause your credit score to be low.

Read More..