Mortgages

What You Can Do To Get a Bad Credit Mortgage

Posted in Mortgages on August 20th, 2010 by Jim – Comments Off

Many people are trying to take advantage of the great prices in housing right now. You could be one of them, even if you have bad credit. While lenders are more reluctant to write a sub-prime or bad credit mortgage, they can happen under the right circumstances. What can you do to get one of these mortgages? Read on.

There are really three things to consider: your FICO score, your debt-to-income ratio and your down payment nest egg. These three things play off each other in different ways depending on the values of each part. If you have a high FICO but a high DTI (debt-to-income), you may be just fine. Or if your FICO is in the 500s but you have a sizable down payment, that might be just fine, as well. The thing to worry about is having a bad FICO, a high DTI and little to no down payment. You will not qualify for a mortgage, not even with bad credit mortgage rates, with all three of those against you.

To get a bad credit mortgage loan or a bad credit refinancing package, you need to work on your credit score, first and foremost. This is the key to how the lenders view you and your request. You can do a lot to improve your score and you don’t need to pay a service to for that either! These days everyone is trying to make money by helping you improve your credit score. Ignore those ads and do the work yourself. It is not hard. First, request a copy of your score, if you don’t have that information already. Look for any old lines of credit. Do you still have that Shell gas card? If not, you can write to the credit bureau and request that the account be marked closed by consumer. It is important to make sure it is not marked closed by the company. That would be a huge black mark on your score.

Next, the lenders look at how much debt you have when compared to your income. If you carry too much debt, the lenders will be reluctant to loan to you, for free that you will default. Pay off as much debt as you can, before you apply for a bad credit mortgage. Even if it is small debt, having less debts listed on the lender report is a good thing.

Last, if you do not have any sort of down payment ready, don’t waste your time. These days, no matter your credit score, you have got to have a down payment in order to buy a house. That would sound odd to our grandparents who knew that a down payment was required for a mortgage, but in the last two decades, those rules went out the window. Now they are back and to stay, most likely. So you need 20% of the loan’s value as your down payment. Accept it and move on. House prices and interest rates are likely to be good and low for a few more years, so focus on saving for a down payment and cleaning up your FICO.

Advice On Property & Buy To Let Mortgages

Posted in Mortgages on August 17th, 2010 by Jim – Comments Off

If you on the lookout for an investment to make in the world of property and considering buy to let mortgages, it takes a lot of thought and time if you are going to get the right deal for your circumstances and for it not to cause you grief anywhere along the line. There are however some pointers that will maximise your chance of finding the perfect property and snapping up the best buy to let mortgage out there for you. The following are just a few.

1. Choose the locaion of the property you are buying very carefully. The area is important as it can often decide the value of your investment, and can cause your price to fluctuate depending on certain factors such as crime amenities and local planning permission being granted. Do some research in those sectors by searching on the internet and determining if the area is worth you money.

2. Figure out how much the property you are looking to invest in will make you per month in rental yield. Do not just take the estate agent or house sellers’ word for it, as they may lie to you about the true amount so they can get a quick sale. Again, look on the internet or contact letting agencies and pose as a searching tenant.

3. Spend some time to find out what the value of similar properties to yours in the area are worth. You can find this out quite easily just by looking at estate agent listings, this is so you pay a fair price for any house of flat you look into.

4. Rule out any properties in undiscovered areas, as they are usually undiscovered becaouse of some off putting reason. The only time you should even think about it is if you are advised to do so by a reputable professional.

5. Do not leave out any estate agents in the local area when looking for a property, this ensures no offers that would be of interest to you are left out.

6. Do not restrict yourself to just a certain area, always include the surrounding areas when you are looking at properties, providing that they are good areas as well. There is no reason to be picky about the area as it will not be yourself that lives there!

7. Make sure that you take plenty of time to compare buy to let mortgages that are on the market. This is not something that can be done quickly, even if you do have an understanding of it all.

8. If there are any houses or flats that you like but they are in a state of disrepair, consider how much time and money that will take to get it back up to renting standard.

9. Do not sign anything or put any money down until the property has been inspected fully.

10. When you have finally found the one that you want to buy, bargain with the seller over the price, because there are occasions where the seller may accept a lower price if they know the sale will happen straight away.

What Happens if I Foreclose

Posted in Mortgages on August 6th, 2010 by Jim – Comments Off

If you’re facing foreclosure, you may be wondering, “What happens if I foreclose?” Right now, you are facing the unknown and sometimes that can be even scarier than knowing what will happen. You need answers, and you need them fast. Don’t worry; many people have gone through home foreclosure and somehow lived to talk about it. It is a terrible experience to live through, but it is not the end of the world.

Finding out what to expect is a matter of looking up your state’s foreclosure laws. You can probably do this on Google without bothering a lawyer. There are many websites that have already done the work for you and set up charts and fact tables for you to look at. The things you want to find out are how much notice the bank must give you and how much time you have to move after the home is sold. These are the most important things to make sure you know.

You might even discover that you have several months after the sale before you need to move. This is the case in many states, but not all of them. If you do have time after the sale, you can use this time to save up some money for an apartment and moving expenses.

There are some foreclosure avoidance strategies you might be able to use if you still have time to try to save your home. Selling the home is always an option, but don’t get your hopes up too high because it often takes a long time for a house to sell and you probably don’t have much time. However, it is still worth a try.

You can also stall or avoid foreclosure by filing for bankruptcy. Chapter thirteen is the only type of bankruptcy that gives you any hope of keeping your home. In order for this to be successful, you must be able to catch up on all of the mortgage payments before the bankruptcy is finalized, so it is probably not an option if you are already several months behind. However, if you are still managing to stay almost caught up it is something that might just save you from losing your home to foreclosure.