Record low mortgage rates: What to do now

Rates on the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 3.84%, down from 3.88% last week and 4.71% a year ago. Fifteen-year fixed-rate mortgages averaged 3.07%, down from 3.89% a year ago and rates on 5-year Treasury-indexed adjustable-rate mortgages averaged 2.85%, which is down from 3.47% a year ago. You can get a survey and track mortgage rates at HSH.com.

Homebuyers who have applied for a mortgage should probably lock in their mortgage rate now. Homeowners who have a mortgage should consider their refinancing options, while mortgage rates are this low. Here are a few things for refinancers to consider:

Folks who can reduce their mortgage interest rate by at least one percent should look into their refinancing options. Also, if you have an adjustable rate mortgage, you should still think about this opportunity to lock in the certainty of a low fixed rate, even if your current adjustable rate is lower than the fixed rate.

If the lower payment of your new mortgage recoups the closing costs in 24 months or less and you plan to keep the home for at least that long, then refinancing can be worth it. If you refinanced in the last year or two, just be sure to consider any closing costs from your last refinance that have not yet been recovered.

Homeowners with larger mortgages should definitely look at refinancing again, even if they refinanced in the last year or two. The monthly savings from lower interest rates for larger mortgages are greater and can recover the costs of a refinancing more quickly.

Today’s mortgage refinancing reality is that for folks who are unable to prove their income and assets with verifiable documentation will struggle to find any reasonable refinancing options. Expect to provide full documentation of income and assets with your mortgage application. This includes pay statements from the past three pay periods, three months of bank statements and tax returns for the past two years. Requirements may also include having cash in reserve equal to six to 12 months of mortgage, insurance and tax payments. In most cases, 70 percent of retirement account balances count towards this requirement.

If you can provide documentation of the income and assets required, your credit score is 700 or higher, have no late payments, your mortgage loan amount is less than 80 percent of the homes appraised value, and the loan is at the conforming limit (not more than $417,000 and up to $625,500 in designated High Cost Areas) then you’ll have plenty of lenders offering attractive refinancing options.

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Debt inequality is the new income inequality

The rich are getting richer, and everyone else is going deeper into debt trying to keep up.

The bottom 95% of Americans have seen debt levels balloon compared to their earnings over the past 20 years or so, as falling incomes made them more dependent on credit to maintain their lifestyles.

In 1983, the bottom 95% had 62 cents of debt for every dollar they earned, according to research by two International Monetary Fund economists. But by 2007, the ratio had soared to $1.48 of debt for every $1 in earnings.

The bottom 95% had incomes of roughly $160,000 or less in 2007, including capital gains.

And then there’s the top 5%. Their debt-to-income level actually fell during the same period, from 76 cents of debt for every dollar earned in 1983, to just 64 cents in 2007.

And experts say the picture hasn’t changed much since then.
Getting off government assistance

The debt divide is a result of the growing income gap between the wealthiest Americans and everyone else. The top 5% saw their share of total income rise to 34% in 2007, up from 22% in 1983. This excludes capital gains, which pump up the income of the rich even more since they are more likely to invest.

The wealthy had so much extra money lying around that they channeled it back into the financial system, making more credit available to the rest of the nation.

“Rich people have more money to play with and there are only so many Armani suits they can buy. So they can lend money back to the majority,” said Michael Kumhof, deputy division chief at the IMF who co-authored the report. Other Americans “are trying to maintain standards of living.”

As their wages dropped, some Americans were forced to take on more debt just to stay in place, according to Robert Reich, former Labor Secretary under President Clinton who has written about income inequality.

With credit easier to come by, they financed their spending by taking out home equity loans or refinancing their houses. They also took out more auto and student loans and ran up their credit card balances.

“The only way they could continue to purchase what they need was to go deeper into debt,” said Reich, now a public policy professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

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Can Internet Marketing Be a Long Term Business?

Here is the basic honest truth: most of the people get into Internet Marketing because they are convinced it is an easy way to earn quick money. Their approach is to make a fast website, put up some advertising and a few affiliate links and then sit back and watch while they earn real cash. There are a large amount of individuals who do this and also earn lots of money on the internet. But what if you want more than some extra or even quick cash (quick cash, naturally being a misnomer)? Can Internet Marketing really be leveraged to produce a worthwhile and long term career?

The quick and dirty answer is that yes, you are able to make Internet Marketing your long term and sustainable career. You only need to take on the project properly. The procedures and programs you use to build something to earn fast money are not all that different than the methods and systems you will use to build long term profits. So what would you do if you need to develop a sustainable career on the internet?

It is very important that the first thing you do, in order to earn long term money online, is accept the fact that you are going to have to do real work. You will have to do actual and real work on a daily basis and you will have days when you feel fantastic about what you do and days when you wish you could find something else to take on. This causes it to be just about like every other occupation that is out there. If you want to produce lasting cash flow by working lots right now and not at all later on then you are going to be in for a rude awakening in a little while. So be ready to roll up your sleeves and get to work.

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New Photo Effect

Some people make leisure photo effects celebrities, acting as a desktop wallpaper. Young people in particular tend to enjoy sending photo prints of their favorite actors, actresses and musicians on the walls of their rooms.

This is where digital photo effects christmas frame come in. These devices look like your standard photo frame seen scattered around the house. There is a big difference, however, can not see the digital photo frame, photo paper, they show your digital photos directly from your memory card or memory on board.

Free printable photo effects calendar 2012 are just that, they are calendars that are personalized with your choice of digital photography and are completely free.

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Best Unsecured Loans

When people come into the world of private enterprise, they may need a loan, so they start. This is where small business loans come in handy for them. Not only can you get these loans for the fledgling company, but you can also get them for companies who want more.
Unsecured Loan for tenants are designed for people in rented property, with the obvious reason that these people are not the property of acting as collateral for their loans. This can often mean that the tenant has trouble getting loans from high street banks or supermarkets.
Best Unsecured Loans do not require collateral from borrowers like tenants or non-homeowners and are therefore safe. However, in the absence of guarantees, which increases the risk for lenders. Lenders, therefore, ensure that risks are minimized. To test this, they demand a higher interest rate than the best unsecured loans. But the advantage of the best unsecured loan is that the borrower may have the interest rates relatively low, it has an excellent credit history and also has an ability to repay her.
Most small businesses looking for Business Financing do so because they have cash flow problems. Most occur, it is because the company to surrender 30 to 60 days for payment to their customers, but has problems that must be paid promptly. In fact, they can not afford to wait 60 days to pay.

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