1 – Lower Monthly Payments

Interest rates are low, you’re already halfway through your existing mortgage and your monthly costs are up and you could really could use the cash. By taking advantage of lower than low interest rates and extending your 25 year home mortgage that has only 15 years remaining on it back for another 25 years, you lower your monthly payments and you get more cash in your pocket at the end of each month. Keep in mind though, that you are still in debt and that you are now going to be paying that loan for a much longer period of time.

2 – Bigger Savings

With lower interest rates and less fees these days, refinancing could save you thousands in the long run. You can also try to take advantage of the bonuses for earlier repayments. These things combined could amount to several thousand dollars in cumulated savings.

3 – Get Cash. Now.

By refinancing that mortgage in a way that gives you some cash to use, like switching to a Home Equity or Line of Credit loan, you get the opportunity to add some value to your home, or even get that car you urgently need. But remember, this is not cash you own, but cash you owe so spend it wisely.

4 – Debt Consolidation

Taking out a new loan can let you pay off your existing mortgage as well as your existing credit card debt and replace it for a loan that may take longer to pay but has a far lower interest rate than that credit card bill you have been struggling to pay off.

5 – Early Mortgage Repayment

Let’s say you just had that rare salary increase and you think you would like to put that mortgage out of your mind earlier in life. Refinancing your existing mortgage sounds like a good idea. You can take out a new loan with shorter terms, say 10 years instead of 25, and you can end up owning your house sooner than later. Less things to worry about later in life.

Taking out a new loan for your existing home mortgage might sound tedious or scary but by just getting the facts straight and throwing in a little careful math, you can make refinancing work for you.

Folks with many people right now just struggling to make payments on their home mortgage, there has to be some ways to help them out right? But how did they get into this predicament in the first place? Maybe it was that adjustable rate mortgage (ARM) that looked so enticing because the first few payments were really affordable. However, with home mortgage rates up, many homeowners are finding it difficult to make the payment. Another possible reason is that they may have been fooled into taking on a home loan they can’t afford to pay or maybe they were forced into refinancing with higher rates and interest rates because of bad credit. The reasons are plenty. These people who can’t pay now can’t even take advantage of low refinancing rates or even of the TARP that might help them. They could lose their home, and with it their savings. Their home mortgage is in trouble and what can they do?

Continue reading Save your Home, Save your Home Mortgage

We have a mortgage for 10 years. It’s really hurting us. What can we do about it? We live on a very quiet neighborhood. We took out a home loan with a very optimistic term. Since we have very short terms, our the interest rates on our mortgage is quite low while our repayments are really high. We are considering to go for a refinancing scheme to avail of some lower interest rates but what can we do to make sure that this won’t hurt us in the long run?

Continue reading Should we go and Refinance our Home Loan?

CitiGroup’s home mortgage subsidiary is Citi Mortgage. This banking group was one of the institutions most hurt by the subprime lending crisis and has subsequently lost billions in stock value and has had to retrench several thousand of its employees. CitiGroup’s new CEO, Vikram Pandit had taken all of the group’s mortgage activities and merged them into one entity, Citi Mortgage. In doing so, Mr. Pandit seeked to improve the control over the group’s mortgage practice as well as reduce the confusion brought about by maintaining several subsidiaries.

Citi Mortgage, which advertises their mortgage as Pay Less Now, Get More Now,  offers VA and FHA mortgages, as well as fixed rate conventional mortgages that are available at fixed rates for 15 or 30 years. They also offer several variable rate mortgages that start with an introductory fixed rate and then switch to a variable rate that depends on the prime for the rest of the loan.

Citi Mortgage is a part of Citigroup, one of the major issuers of subprime loans, and one of the most heavily damaged by the housing downturn and the subprime lending crisis. In November of 2007 Citigroup took a $7.5 billion loan from Abu Dhabi on poor terms just to stay afloat after suffering staggering losses. Shortly thereafter, Citigroup replaced its CEO.

Citibank planns to reduce it’s holdings by 20% in residential mortgages. This equates to about 45 billions dollars, to reduce their holdings in riskier assets and reduce their subprime losses. It plans to sell about 90% of it’s home loans and only allowing new home loans which they plan to hold on to.

All this increased toxic attitude towards new mortgages makes Citi Mortgage a hard place to get a new loan and it might not be the best place for homebuyers to go to in trying to get a home mortgage.

Visit their website at http://www.mortgage.com

Refinancing is becoming a hot topic as mortgage rates are lowered, almost an average of 5.7% for a 30 year fixed rate loan. In some cities, lenders already offer 5.5% or less and no more than $1,000 in fees. This has happened since mortgage rates plunged to 20 year lows in mid January.

These are new historical lows as mortgage rates have ranged between 6 to 10% during the past twenty years. The difference between monthly payments between today’s rates and the lowest historical lows is not much, around $25 for every $100,000 and thus refinancing has become a serious option for most home owners.

Most borrowers may be put off by the 20% of the loan amount that they have to put up as banks and mortgage companies will only loan about 80% of a home’s current value. However, there are several options that are available to a home buyer like applying for an FHA loan or a VA loan.

The FHA loan is a home mortgage guaranteed by the Federal Housing Authority and finances up to 95% of a home’s value. Another option is the Veteran’s Affairs which funds up to 100% of the home’s value and it may be the only program that offers 100% financing.