With the market experiencing a supply glut of homes, fixed-rate mortgages are now experiencing historically low interest rates. Here are some tips to getting the best possible home mortgage available. Just remember to keep a good credit score.

Here are some tips to help you get the best possible loan.

(1) Watch your rate.

The closer you are to closing on a home mortgage deal you have keep tracking your interest rates which continue to fluctuate. If the rate for the deal you are making suddenly goes up with no reasonable explanation you may have to find another lender for a mortgage even if you may have to push back your date of purchase by several days.

(2) Get preapproved, not prequalified.

The loan with the lowest rate and fees that are less than a thousand dollars are usually the best deal for people looking for a home mortgage. It pays to get a pre-approval for these loans. This usually entails filling out an application that details your income, savings and personal debt. It will be checked against your credit report and if it passes their tests, you can get the preapproval letter with how much you can borrow for your home mortgage.

This is much better than getting prequalified because prequalification does not include your credit score. In this manner, you get an idea of what problems you may encounter when getting a mortgage and what rates you can expect. But Should I Refinance Home

(3) Get the best rates

Fixed-rate loans now are so cheap there’s no point in looking for something else. It’s just a matter of shopping around to find out what is the best rate you can get for your home mortgage. You can do this by doing some aggressive research online, asking your friends or agent and joining credit unions.

With the market the way it is now, it shouldn’t be so hard to find a home mortgage to your advantage.

At some point in time, you tend to ask yourself, who is in charge of protecting me from possibly bad mortgage business practices?

The Federal Trade Commission is the main government body that regulates the business of mortgage brokering. The FTC is tasked to enforce the basic consumer protection statute (found in Section 5(a) of the FTC act) that states that “unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce … are … declared unlawful.” So in this case, your rights as a consumer are protected by the FTC and in turn, they watch over the business of mortgages.

States are also regulators for mortgage brokers. They issue licenses to brokers to allow them to run their businesses in their locality. In this sense, a lot of people who work on loans that pertain to mortgages and call themselves mortgage brokers really are not legally allowed to do so.

Further information about the regulators of the mortgage industry can be found on these websites:

www.CSBS.org
www.AARMR.org
www.namb.org
www.nabmb.org

A small consolation of the mortgage crisis are the depressed refinance mortgage rates that are now available. These historically low rates make refinancing a very lucrative option for a lot of people, for extra money to spend or to save. But before you make a move take advantage of cheap refinance mortgage rates, you have to make sure to do the math and make sure that you don’t end up spending a lot when trying to close a refinancing deal. Here are some tips

Continue reading Take Advantage of Cheap Refinance Mortgage Rates

There is now a new era of “historically low” when it comes to mortgage rates and there is nothing like it.

Four years ago when we were all celebrating the arrival of already “historically low” mortgage rates. Back then, they were dancing at around 5.5% for a 30 year fixed mortgage which was truly significant back then because in the preceeding thirty years before that, 30 year fixed mortgages never posted a rate lower than 6.5% and actually climbed to 16+% at one point during the early 90’s.

But now, rates have reached a new low. Thanks to movements by the feds, rates could now hit 4.75% depending on your creditworthiness. That is almost one percent lower than the previous historic lows of half a decade ago. Last month, the national average rate was just a little over 5 percent.

People are aware of this opportunity now and refinancing activities have jumped up by over sixty percent in December, according to the Mortgage Banker’s Association, although these activities only count refinancing applications which may or may not become actual mortgages.

As a rule of thumb, refinancing makes sence if the new rate is about 1% lower than the old mortgage. At this rate it makes more sense any less and the upfront fees make refinancing expensive.

If you are looking to save some extra cash, it might be a good idea to look into refinancing your existing home mortgage. Granted, it may not be for everyone.

Home mortgages right now are so crazy. What should we do about them? All of a sudden, the Rich Dad Poor Dad thinking doesn’t seem so smart.

Continue reading Home Mortgage Rant