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So, you’ve taken an application with a mortgage broker. He has told you your monthly payment and the total amount you will need at the time of closing. How do you know the charges on the loan are fair? How do you compare this loan to others you have been offered?
Check the GFE.
The Good Faith Estimate (GFE) can be your weapon to get the fairest price for your loan. If you don’t take a good long look at this infinitely important legal-sized piece of paper, you may just be throwing your money away.
This single document will detail every specific charge on your loan. Not only does it list your charges, it also itemizes them to show whom these charges are being paid to. Don’t just look at the dollar figures on this form. You should pay close attention to the party that collects those dollars. While the big number on the bottom is often scary, seeing all the people that came together to make this happen for you may make it all seem worthwhile.
You can use this breakdown to make sure that each party that collects a fee is being reasonable. You can compare apples-to-apples because all Good Faith Estimates must contain the same information. Also, make sure that what you have is a “Good Faith Estimate” and not just a summary of costs that the mortgage broker put together. They may leave some things out but the GFE keeps them in line because they are required by the government to disclose all fees to you.
Your realtor may also give you a fee summary. Do not trust this form. They do this to give you an idea about fees and costs but they don’t have the information from the lender necessary to give an accurate quote. You can only get a Good Faith Estimate from a mortgage company.
Since all fees are disclosed in black and white on the GFE, this makes it a great tool to compare mortgages. More importantly, it makes it impossible for a dishonest mortgage broker to sneak unexplainable charges into your loan. A mortgage broker or bank is obligated to give you a GFE very soon after application. Take advantage of this to make sure you are comfortable with the fees being presented.
My best suggestion to you as a homebuyer is to hold on to the original signed copy of your GFE. This document can be easily compared to the final papers that you will sign at closing. You will notice any changes between these forms because they are set up very similarly. Keep in mind that the numbers will change, that’s the nature of an estimate, however your broker should be able to explain any noticeably large changes.
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Offset mortgages offer an attractive alternative to traditional mortgages and can save you thousands over the long term.
Buying a home is an exciting time, and it is the biggest financial purchase that most people undertake. The majority of homebuyers cannot afford to buy a house outright and it would be impractical to save up the full amount of the house before you bought it, because you would need somewhere to live in the meantime. Therefore, the usual practice is to take out a mortgage ? a loan secured against the property you are buying.
In the United Kingdom, there are different types of mortgages to choose from, which include a mortgage that is a big success in Australia, from where it originated. It is called an offset mortgage. Basically, offset mortgages use the interest earnt from your savings accounts and current accounts against your mortgage interest; and as a result this reduces your overall mortgage repayments.
With offset mortgages, your mortgage account runs alongside all your other accounts, and the net balance for all the accounts is calculated, normally on a daily basis. The interest is then worked out on the overall total you have in your accounts. All the interest you have earnt from your savings and current accounts goes straight into your mortgage account.
As with most mortgages there are variations around this theme, such as a current account mortgage (CAM). Your salary is paid directly into your mortgage account where it immediately reduces your mortgage balance. You can then draw against the account for your normal spending as you would with an ordinary account. The mortgage balance and interest is calculated daily, so even if money were left in your account for a short period, it would still have some positive impact on the cost of your mortgage.
Offset mortgages are very efficient. They will enable you to dedicate the bulk of your savings to reduce your mortgage, which can save you thousands of pounds from the mortgage cost, and allow you to pay off your mortgage early. You would still have the flexibility to divert your savings to other uses, however you would give up some of the savings made on your mortgage.
The drawbacks to offset mortgages, is that the mortgage interest rates can be higher than the deals you could get on other types of mortgages, and there are often no special offers, such as low discounted rates for the first few years. If you tend to keep a low balance in your current account and have little in the way of savings, the benefits you get from combining the accounts may be too small to outweigh the extra cost of the offset mortgage. You also need to be efficient with keeping track of your financial outgoings, especially in the case of a CAM where you have just a single account for both your mortgage and current account.
You do not necessarily need an offset mortgage to pay off your mortgage early. You could have an ordinary mortgage and a completely separate savings account. Then, occasionally you could use your savings to pay off a chunk of your mortgage, which could end in you paying off the mortgage early. However, unlike offset mortgages, you would have to pay the tax that was earnt in the savings account.
An offset mortgage could be the right mortgage choice for you, if you are good with your finances, generally have a high current account balance, have reasonably high savings and you are a taxpayer, particularly a higher rate taxpayer. In the United Kingdom, an increasing number of financial lenders are offering offset mortgages because of the benefits they offer to the customer.
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Cheap mortgage insurance can give you peace of mind and the income needed to continue repaying your mortgage without worry of losing your home if you were to become without an income. If you were to find yourself out of work due to an accident or becoming ill or if you were unfortunate enough to be made redundant the cover could be a safety net until you got back to work.
The majority of policies would start to provide you with a monthly income which would be tax free once you had been out of work for between 31 and 90 days, this depends on the provider. It would then continue for between 12 and 24 months. While taking out cheap mortgage protection can give peace of mind you do have to make sure that it is suitable for your circumstances because there are exclusions.
If you are only working part time, are self-employed, suffering a pre-existing illness or you are of retirement age then mortgage insurance would not be in your best interest. While these exclusions are the most common to all payment protection policies there can be others which are defined by the provider. This means it is essential that you have to read the terms and conditions outlined in the policy before taking out the cover.
Mortgage payment protection insurance (MPPI) has earned itself a bad reputation along with the rest of the family of protection policies but it is not the actual products themselves which should be blamed. When taken out with the correct information so you can make sure it is suitable for your circumstances a policy will do the job it is supposed to do. Mis-selling of policies occurred due to providers using poor selling techniques with the majority being sold alongside a mortgage. Not only do you not get the information needed but buying cover this way is also the dearest way of buying protection. Problems were highlighted within the sector in 2005 after a super complaint was made to the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) and the Financial Services Authority began an investigation before the OFT referred the sector to the Competition Commission who is currently conducting an in-depth review.
Some consumers are not even aware that they can take out the cover independently from a standalone provider and shop around for the cheapest premiums. Premiums for the cover are based on the amount of cover you need for your mortgage and your age at the time of taking out the cover but it does vary from provider to provider. An independent standalone provider will always offer cheap mortgage protection and should also include the information and key facts of the policy so you are able to determine if it is suited to your circumstances.
Just as the cost of the cover varies with providers so does the exclusions and terms and conditions so it is essential that you compare every cheap mortgage protection policy you are thinking of taking out not just for the cheapest quotes. Until the comparison charts appear in March 2008 which should open up the cover and explain the exclusions, the cost of the cover and which cover is most suitable, going with a specialist is your best option.
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If you have Microsoft Excel running on your computer at home or work, you can use Excel’s NPER function to calculate how quickly you can pay off a loan such as a mortgage.
The NPER function calculates the term, or number of regular payments, on a loan given its interest rate, payment amount, present loan balance, balloon payment (if any), and, optionally, the type-of-annuity switch.
The type-of-annuity switch is a little complicated, but here’s how it works. If you set the type-of-annuity switch to 1, Excel assumes payments occur at the beginning of the period, following the annuity due convention. If you set the annuity switch to 0 or you omit the argument, Excel assumes payments occur at the end of the period following the ordinary annuity convention.
But let me show you how the function works in theory and in practice. All of this will become quite clear, I’m sure.
The function uses the following syntax:
=NPER(rate,pmt,pv,fv,type)
For example, to calculate the number of $1,000 monthly payments required to pay off a 9% mortgage that still has a $100,000 mortgage balance, you enter the following formula into an Excel worksheet cell:
=NPER(.09/12,-1000,100000,0,0)
The function returns the value 185.53, representing roughly 185 payments and then another roughly half payment. Notice that to convert the 9% annual interest to a period interest, the formula divides the annual interest rate by 12. Notice, too, that the payment amount, as a cash outflow, shows as a negative value while the loan balance, as an implicit cash inflow, shows as a positive value.
One final note: The NPER function rarely returns an integer, or whole-number result. As in the preceding example, it commonly returns a fractional value, indicating that after the last regular payment, an additional fractional payment will also need to be made.
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Subprime Mortgages ? Information
05/11/09
Undoubtedly, you’ve heard the radio commercial claiming you can get a mortgage despite having bad credit. Bad credit mortgages are better known as subprime mortgages.
Subprime
“Subprime” is a euphemism for a borrower who simply doesn’t qualify for a traditional home mortgage. Subprime loans used to be very difficult to get, but things changed in the 1990′s. Banks began to realize there were a lot of borrowers with less than stellar credit or other problems. More borrowers meant more revenues, so banks started creating subprime mortgages and the game was on. As a result of these new loans, home ownership in the United States has risen to all time highs.
One of the biggest determinants in qualifying for a loan is your credit score. A borrower’s credit history is analyzed using a “FICO” score, named after Fair Isaac and Company, Inc. Generally, a FICO score below 620 is considered an indication of bad credit. The borrower is then classified as a subprime borrower.
Importantly, a FICO score below 620 is not the only reason a person may be classified as subprime. An infrequent borrowing history, new employment position or expensive home may also key the designation. In fact, nearly 50 percent of subprime borrowers have FICO scores above 620.
When a lender writes a mortgage, it is betting on whether the borrower will repay the loan completely and in a timely manner. The better your credit score, employment history and so, the better deal you will get from the lender. Obviously, subprime borrowers aren’t going to get the best deal. Instead, a lender may require a larger down payment and will certainly designate a higher interest rate than given to “good” borrowers. In addition, subprime borrowers may have to pay points just to get the loan.
The trade off of all of this, of course, is that you get a loan to buy a home. Home ownership has consistently proved to be one of the best long-term investments in the United States. While Americans are criticized for failing to save money, they are effectively doing so by purchasing homes and building equity in them.
Should you apply for a subprime loan if you have less than stellar credit or other problems? There is no right answer, so you should consider sitting down with an independent mortgage broker to analyze your situation.
