Posts tagged as:

Refinancing

October 30, 2008

What is the difference between a hard and a soft prepayment penalty?

A penalty that applies to refinancing only is a soft penalty; a penalty that applies to both refinancing and a home sale is a hard penalty.

October 30, 2008

Should I agree to have a prepayment penalty included into my contract?

If your credit score is not very good, I am afraid, you don’t have very much of a choice here. You are forced to do whatever your lender tells you to in order to get the loan. However, try as hard as you can to avoid the hard penalty . Borrowers with a good credit, [...]

October 26, 2008

Prepayment Penalty

A prepayment penalty is the jack-in-the-box of the mortgaging world. Most times it is equally annoyingly unexpected (for the borrower), but unlike the dumb toy, it may cause people to lose their money, not just make them produce a polite squeak of a laugh. A prepayment penalty, if included into a mortgage contract, states that [...]

July 29, 2008

ARM Rates Are Skyrocketing! I don’t want to lose my home!

This very unpleasant situation does require a considerable financial effort on your part, but it can be resolved eventually to your advantage. The two most reliable ways are: to make extra payments towards the Principal, or/and refinance into a Fixed Rate Mortgage. How do extra payments help? The amount paid as Interest is a percentage [...]

April 30, 2008

Refinancing (Part III)

Today I suggest we talk about the so-called “no-cost” refinancing. First of all, this commonly used name for a refinancing option one can find very useful under certain circumstances is in fact rather misleading, because: No-cost does not mean free from any costs; No-cost refinancing helps you only with the Non-Recurring Closing Costs; No-cost refinancing [...]

April 17, 2008

Refinancing (Part II)

 Why do people refinance? All for different reasons, of course, but the most common ones are: To obtain a lower interest rate, To build the equity of their property faster, To change the type of their loan, To take advantage of an improved credit rating, To get some cash out of the equity already built [...]

April 7, 2008

Refinancing (Part I)

Refinancing your mortgage means basically that you stop your current mortgage and take a new one in its stead on better terms. The goal is to save money by getting a better deal on the home mortgage loan. People tend to refinance when mortgage market interest rates drop below the lowest rate they can have [...]