Estate House QTA

Archive for the ‘Investing’ Category

Investing in property that is under priced as a short sale or foreclosure can be a wise move, but it is vital to make sure that you are choosing the right property. As long as the property is a sound investment, its value is likely to be higher than that for which it can currently be bought and it will therefore generate a good profit.

Foreclosure occurs when a homeowner is unable to make the required mortgage payments. The lender will then initiate foreclosure proceedings. The property will then be sold at auction in order to recover as much as possible of what it is owed. Properties that are sold at foreclosure auctions can often be bought for less than what they are really worth.

A short sale is one in which the mortgage lender agrees to accept a reduced amount in order to pay off the mortgage. This enables the homeowner to escape their financial difficulties and the lender to recover as much as they can of the money that they are owed. Short sales can be a more convenient alternative to foreclosure for the lender.

Both the homeowner and the lender will lose out to a certain extent during a short sale, but it can be the best solution when a property has dropped in value and is worth less than the amount that is owed on the mortgage. Properties that are sold in this way can often be bought for a reduced price because the homeowner needs a quick sale.

Buying a property through a foreclosure auction or short sale can allow property investors to pay a reduced price. This can increase the profit that will be made when the property is sold again. It is important to approach properties like this with care, however, in order to avoid falling into the same difficulties as the previous owner.

Property investors should make sure that they are really getting a bargain and not investing in a property that is worth even less than they are paying for it. Some properties that are sold in this way may need a lot of work done on them in order to make them habitable or profitable to sell.

Others may still be declining in value and could therefore result in a loss rather than a profit. It is even more important than usual to investigate a property that is being sold after foreclosure or as a short sale. The quality of the structure and the true value of the property need to be carefully assessed.

The FHA Streamline Refinance is a mortgage program designed to reward borrowers with existing Federal Housing Association mortgages by making the refinance process simple, quick and painless. However, in 2011 increases in the FHA mortgage insurance rates and new requirements for particular benefits to the borrower in the FHA guidelines caused the program to become almost impossible for homeowners to qualify for. These problems are being corrected in 2012.

To understand how the FHA streamline refinance works, you need to know a little bit of the behind the scenes workings of the mortgage business. In order to encourage lenders to make loans to more borrowers, the FHA program was created not to actually lend money, but to insure mortgages made by lenders. In other words, FHA is an insurance program for lenders. When a loan is underwritten according to FHA guidelines by an FHA approved lender, FHA guarantees the lender that if the borrower defaults then FHA will pay off the loan.

This encourages lenders to make loans which they would not approve otherwise. Once FHA has insured a loan, FHA is already on the hook to pay off the loan if the borrower defaults. As long as a borrower has already been making their loan payments on time, when market interest rates go down it is in FHA’s best interest to make it easy for borrowers to get the lowest payments possible.

Since real estate values have collapsed, many homeowners have found refinancing to be impossible since their homes are worth substantially less than the price they originally paid for the home. This is not a problem for homeowners eligible for the FHA streamline refinance. No appraisal is required for this loan. Therefore, it doesn’t matter if your home is worth half the price you paid for it. FHA allows you to refinance based on your original purchase price.

In addition, FHA does not require verification of your job, your income or your credit score. FHA assumes that if you are making your mortgage payments on time already, you will be capable of making a lower mortgage payment once you refinance.

There are, however, still some qualifying standards:

• You must have a perfect payment history on your loan for the last 12 months and you must be current on your mortgage now.

• You must have made at least 6 payments on your current mortgage and you must wait at least 210 days from the time you closed your present mortgage before you apply to refinance.

• You must be lowering your total mortgage payment by 5 percent or more, or you must be converting from an adjustable rate mortgage to a fixed rate mortgage. Because FHA mortgage insurance rates were raised in 2011, this “net tangible benefit” requirement made it impossible for many homeowners to use the streamline refinance because although they obtained a lower interest rate, higher mortgage insurance costs prevented their payment from going down. This problem has been corrected in 2012.

• Your loan balance cannot be increased to cover closing costs on your new loan.

FHA loans require two different types of mortgage insurance premiums. The first is an upfront mortgage insurance premium (UFMIP) which is paid at closing. This amount is usually simply added to your FHA loan and financed. The second type of FHA mortgage insurance premium is the annual premium due each year. This amount is divided into 12 equal installments each year and added to your payments.

Mortgage insurance rates for standard FHA mortgages are being increased again in 2012. Because of this increase, FHA is now instituting a different set of mortgage insurance premiums for streamline refinances. This new premium schedule provides a substantial mortgage insurance discount for loans which were originally insured when mortgage insurance premiums were lower.

This makes it possible for those borrowers to refinance to lower interest rates without having the new insurance premiums actually increase their payments. If you have attempted to obtain an FHA Streamline Refinance in 2011 and you were prevented from qualifying by the net tangible benefit requirements, you should contact your lender to see if the new guidelines will allow you to refinance now.

Under the original Home Affordable Refinance Program, the guidelines were so restrictive that most struggling homeowners were unable to qualify for the program. Although many politicians touted the program, in the final analysis HARP was widely considered to be a complete failure. Luckily, the program has been substantially modified and improved so that homeowners actually have a real chance to obtain assistance. By the end of March 2012, the HARP 2.0 program should be available through nearly all lenders.

Under the Home Affordable Refinance Program’s original guidelines, the new loan amount could not exceed 125 percent of the current appraised value. Unfortunately, the severity of the housing market crash left many homeowners much further “underwater” than that. In many areas, housing values have dropped by more than half since 2008 leaving many homeowners owing more than 200% of the current appraised value of their homes.

As a result, many homeowners made a business decision to simply walk away from their homes when they could no longer afford the payment and were unable to refinance or to sell the home. HARP 2.0 removes the 125% loan to value limitation for fixed rate loans under the program, thus opening the gates for many more home owners to refinance and lower their mortgage payments to affordable levels.

In order to qualify for refinancing under the HARP 2.0 program, your original mortgage must be owned or guaranteed by Freddie Mac (FHLMC) or Fannie Mae (FNMA). You can find out whether your loan is owned by Freddie Mac by calling 1-800-FREDDIE (800-373-3343) or at www.freddiemac.com/mymortgage. You can find out if your loan is owned by Fannie Mae by calling 1-800-7FANNIE (800-732-6643) or at www.fanniemae.com/loanlookup.

Your loan must have been sold to Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae on or before May 31, 2009. Chances are, if you obtained your loan after this date you were able to avoid most of the rapid drop in home values associated with the real estate crisis. In fact, you probably benefited from the crash by paying a lower price for your home to begin with and/or your loan already has an extremely low interest rate.

Your loan to value ratio must be higher than 80 percent. This means that your new loan balance must amount to more than 80% of the current appraised value of your home. If your loan amount is less than 80% of the value of your home, you qualify for a standard refinance and do need a special program.

You must be current with the payments on your mortgage. You must not have paid your mortgage late at any time within the past six months and you must not have been late more than once within the last year. As implemented by lenders, the guidelines of many of the original refinance and loan modification programs available to homeowners owing more than the value of their homes encouraged borrowers to stop making payments and go into default in order to be considered!

In addition, you must not have already refinanced your mortgage under the original Home Affordable Refinance Program. There is an exception to this rule. If your loan is owned by Fannie Mae and was refinanced between March 2009 and May 2009 you may still be eligible for the program.
Although the guidelines for the HARP 2.0 program were announced in November 2011, implementation of the program took several months and the program was only opened to all lenders on March 17, 2012. If you have previously attempted to apply for the program and you were turned away, you should try again.

When purchasing a home, you have the option of buying it outright, or you can get a mortgage from a lender.

Over ninety-five percent of home buyers choose to get a mortgage for their home, especially due to the high costs in our society today.

A mortgage is simply a loan that used to purchase some sort of property that is known to increase in market value over the future.

The mortgage rate will signal the cost of borrowing the money from the lender. If you take a look at the amortization schedule for the payment of your mortgage, you will see that much of the payments from the first few years go towards paying down the interest incurred.

Throughout this context, we will be looking at the various ways you can save money on your mortgage by paying the lowest amount of interest in the long run. The most common method is to make the mortgage payments come up even more frequently. If you talk to a mortgage broker, you will be able to learn more about how this concept really works.

When you make weekly payments on your mortgage, you will be paying much less in the long run. If your monthly mortgage payment is eight hundred dollars, and you switch to a weekly payment schedule, you will be only required to pay one hundred and ninety dollars, which will save you ten dollars every month.

A huge portion of your mortgage payment is put down towards the interest and not towards the principal. Your goal should be to pay down the principle as soon as possible. Keeping an open mortgage will allow you to make extra payments without getting charged a penalty fee. At the end of the year, you will have the option to make a lump sum payment on your mortgage.

This lump sum payment will be paid towards the principle, which is great as you will be decreasing the overall interest paid for the mortgage. Paying down as little as ten thousand dollars a year would save you over five thousand dollars in the long run.

You would be able to save the most amount of money when you are first getting your mortgage approved by the lender. It is important that you use a mortgage broker when getting a mortgage, as they could help you get a better mortgage rate. Brokers and advisors have access to market information and would be able to find you the best rates in town, without you having to spend time and money.

Brokers do not work for a specific lender, so regardless of which lender they select, they are still making their money. Going straight to a lender would not technically give you the best rate, so you will be paying more money in the long run for interest payments. Being able to get the lowest possible mortgage rate and taking advantage of special promotions is the smart thing to do.