mortgages

Reverse Mortgages Scam or Legitimate Financial Tool?

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I’ve been getting questions about reverse mortgages lately. It’s not surprising. Reverse mortgages are one of those financial planning tools that are very useful for a specific purpose, and for specific people, that has, unfortunately, been sold aggressively to others. Not all reverse mortgages are scams, but you have to understand what you are getting from reverse mortgage lenders when you sign up. In other words, there is a lot more to a reverse mortgage than what you see on that television commercial or Facebook ad. What Is a Reverse Mortgage? Let’s start from the beginning so that we have a solid footing. What is a reverse mortgage? The most common way to explain reverse mortgages is to say that the definition of a reverse mortgage is when a reverse mortgage lender gives you a lump sum of money for the equity in your home and then gets the home when you die. However, this is a little bit deceptive in that there is more to it than that. Let’s look a little deeper to see what is really going on. First, let’s look at a regular mortgage, or a forward mortgage, if you will. With a traditional mortgage, a …

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What Is a Good Mortgage Rate Today?

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When shopping for a home loan, it can be tough to tell if a certain mortgage rate is good these days. The trick is that all matter of gobbledygook can complicate what you are looking at when shopping for a good mortgage rate. In fact, the mortgage companies and mortgage brokers have made it pretty hard to know exactly what is the best mortgage rate today, or any day. Lookup Good Mortgage Rates First, stop worrying about what the “best” mortgage rate is. Chances are that the best interest rate for your mortgage is different from someone else. This is due to differences in credit scores (check your credit scores for free with Credit Karma, or Credit Sesame), differences in home price, and differences in areas. Then, don’t forget that like anything else, the advertised price for a mortgage is only for a specific mortgage in specific circumstances. One of the few good things to come out of the Great Recession and the near-collapse of the banking system is the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB (who for inexplicably uses lowercase latter for their logo). The CFPB has been building out not only an enforcement division to help protect consumers, but …

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How To – Refinancing a Home Mortgage Steps and Tips

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When considering refinancing your home mortgage, the first step is to get all of the details on what you have now.  Sure, you have vague numbers in your head, but that won’t help you answer all of the loan application questions, or make a real hard-numbers based calculation about the value of refinancing.  What exactly do you need to know before you dive into looking for low interest rates and refinancing your mortgage? Required Information Before Researching Interest Rates and Refinancing Current Balance of Home’s First Mortgage – Not a ballpark, an exact number according to your last statement. Current Balance of Home’s Second Mortgage or HELOC – Again, the number from the last statement. Current Interest Rate – What are you paying on your mortgage right now? ARM or Adjustable Interest Rate Features – When does your rate go up? (The actual date, not just the year.)  How much can it go up in the first year?  The second year?  Each year after that?  Is there a floor (minimum)?  Is there a ceiling (maximum)? When Did Your Mortgage Start? – What day did you close on? Current Home Value? – Check Zillow and Trulia to get a ballpark.  Print …

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Keep Home in Bankruptcy

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After yesterday’s post about rebuilding credit after bankruptcy, I got two different questions about how to keep your home during bankruptcy. One of the readers seemed a bit frustrated and finished by asking, “Why can’t I get a simple answer to this question: Can I keep my home if I file bankruptcy?” The simple answer is: Yes, you can keep your home if you file bankruptcy, but only if you do the right things. I suspect it is that, but only if, part that is causing the answer to not seem simple, so let’s break it down. Keeping Your House After Filing Bankruptcy First, it is important to understand that a home mortgage is a secured loan. The security, or collateral, for the loan is the home. If the debt is not repaid, then the lender may take the collateral and sell it in order to pay off the loan. Now, just like any other debt, a mortgage can be discharged in bankruptcy. Doing so means that the lender may no longer attempt to collect the debt. So far, so good. However, the lien, or the right to take possession of the loan’s collateral is NOT discharged, or affected in …

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Bank Mortgage Scams Continue

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Think that after a multimillion dollar lawsuit and settlement that the big banks would start playing by the rules and treating their customers right? If so, the bridge salesman convention would LOVE to have you drop by. Get ready for the next mortgage scam by the banks. Single Point of Contact Scam One of the things that the big mortgage banks were supposed to do to help their customers and stop mortgage foreclosure fraud was provide a single point of contact for borrowers to deal with on issues like mortgage modification, refinance or foreclosure avoidance. Before, borrowers were forced to call some 1-800 number where a faceless phone drone would do the standard dance. The borrower provided all of his or her information, and then the person on the phone would tell them what they needed to do. Unfortunately, customers found that they had to start over every time they called. One mortgage modification specialist would say that they needed certain documents, then another one would say that they needed additional, or different documents, until finally, one day, a foreclosure notice showed up in the mail because the borrower had “failed” to comply with the necessary procedures. By having a …

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Government Mortgage Help Programs Scams and Deceptive Marketing and Mailings

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It was with much fanfare last month that Congress and the Obama administration passed laws putting into effect government programs to help American homeowners with their mortgages.  Both The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act, and The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act were front page news all over the country. A lot of this publicity was due to the fact that Americans have started to perceive the government as helping out Wall Street and big banks more than they are helping ordinary taxpayers and homeowners who did nothing wrong during the housing bubble and subsequent market collapse and banking collapse. However, the same publicity also made it easier for scammers and dishonest marketers to take advantage of people’s hopes by pretending to have something to do with the government programs when, in fact, they are either outright scams to steal your money or steal your identity, or they are mortgage brokers or mortgage companies that have nothing to do with the government mortgage aid programs trying to insinuate that they are part of those programs.  Unfortunately, many people are falling victim to these con artists and their tricks. How To Protect Yourself From Scams, Thieves, and Con Artists Using Government Mortgage Aid …

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Refinancing the Mortgage to Take Advantage of Lower Interest Rates

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Ok, it’s time to look at refinancing the old homestead’s mortgage.  I’ve been putting it off because of holidays and the fact that rates can still go lower even though the Fed recently cut rates to zero.  Now, it’s time to take a serious look at refinancing and how it might work out for my family.  I’ll be posting a series of articles here on Finance Gourmet to help guide you through the process.  By writing these articles in “real time” with my refinance adventure, you can see the whole process from A to Z and use it as a guide for your own refinancing now, and in the future. To make sure you don’t miss out, I recommend grabbing the RSS feed.  If you aren’t familiar with RSS or “feeds”, they are basically a way to get the article pulled from here by a RSS reader which is just software that goes and gets articles from the websites you ask it to watch.  That way, you don’t have to remember to open your bookmarks to get back here.  It is kind of like the old idea of subscribing to emails that updated you on website content, but this way, …

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