For loan officers and mortgage brokers on the market for mortgage leads, the quality of the lead should be a top priority when determining which company to invest in.
For this reason, before you invest, be sure to do a little research. After reading about the lead company on their web site, be sure to call and speak with someone in customer service.
The best way to find out about the quality of the leads before you purchase them is to ask some specific questions.
Ask where they obtain their leads from.
The best answer you can get to this question is that they own and operate the web sites where customers visit and fill out the on line form.
If a lead company is obtaining their leads from a third party vendor and than reselling them to loan officers at a profit, than they are basically recycling leads. Better put, they are selling junk.
And you never know how many times that third party vendor sold those leads to other lead providers.
Another question to ask is about their delivery method.
The most efficient way to have leads delivered is by way of e-mail.
Especially if you are purchasing real time leads, the lead will literally end up in your mail box within seconds of the customer hitting the submit button on the on-line form.
To sum it all up, a good quality lead is one that is fresh, not dated, or recycled.
And remember, you work hard for your money, so make sure you are getting what you pay for.
Have you heard about mortgage cycling? Maybe you’ve seen the ads for books on this “secret technique” for paying off your mortgage sooner. Is there some useful information in them? Yes, especially if you are not familiar with the basic premise that you can pay extra principle every year and you’ll pay off the loan sooner and save thousands on interest.
Mortgage cycling is dressed up as a “new” system, and of course there are many little tricks to doing this most effectively. There are more risky techniques too, like using short-term home-equity loans to pay down your primary mortgage now. This latter technique could cost you more in interest or even put you into financial trouble that leads towards foreclosure.
The safest way of “mortgage cycling” is to just put large lump sums of money towards your mortgage loan every few months to a year. Pay thousands of pounds extra per year, and you will pay off your loan many years sooner. No surprise there, right, but what if you don’t have the hundreds of pounds a month extra needed to do this?
Money For Mortgage Cycling
Don’t assume you can’t come up with SOME extra money, at least each year. Some will say they can’t, and yet still add hundreds of pounds per month to credit card payments from buying anything from expensive shoes to snowmobiles. There’s nothing wrong with buying these things, but the choice is yours if you want to pay down that mortgage instead.
You can also pay off large chunks of principle by using your annual tax refund, insurance settlements that are not otherwise allocated, and any cash gifts or prizes you may receive.
How much sooner you can pay off your mortgage depends on how much extra you pay and when. The sooner you pay extra money towards the principle, the better. Let’s demonstrate with a simple example, just making an extra payment each month.
Suppose you have a 160,000 30-year mortgage at a 7% annual interest rate. Regular monthly payments would be 1064.40. If you looked at your second payment you would see that it’s composed of 932.57 interest and 131.83 principle (the amount you actually pay down the loan). Just add 131.83 to your normal payment of 1064.40, and you have taken an entire month off the time it will take to pay off your mortgage.
If you did this each month, you would cut the time to pay off your loan in half. The principle part of the payment would be growing with each payment, so the extra payment would be a little more each month (around 137 by the end of the first year), but hopefully over the years your income will rise enough to afford that. Consider that if you pay normally, your last year of the mortgage you’ll pay 12,772.80 (1064.40 x 12 months). On the other hand, pay about an extra 1600 that first year, in the way shown above, and you’ll eliminate that entire last year – a savings of over 11,000!
Other ways to pay off extra principle need to be evaluated carefully. You could, for example, put a few thousand of your savings towards the loan now and save perhaps tens of thousands in interest over the years. However, will you then need to pay even higher credit card rates because you emptied your savings account and need some money? You could cash in stocks and apply the money to the loan, but will you be giving up a 9% return to pay down a 7% mortgage? You may also want to consider paying off any debts with higher interest rates before you apply extra money to your mortgage.
To keep it simple, set aside extra money every month and apply it to the loan. Then use any other money that may otherwise be squandered (like tax refunds). If you just do a few simple things to pay something extra on the loan each year, and you can forget about complicated mortgage cycling plans.
One of the keys to maintaining the middle class in America is homeownership. In fact, the government takes an active role in promoting ownership through incentives.
Home Loans and Government Websites
The government is famous for influencing the behavior of all of us. Despite the draconian conspiracy theories one hears or reads about, the government usually does this in a passive way. Specifically, it uses financial incentives or penalties to nudge us into certain actions. In the case of homeownership, the government offers a ton of information and incentives to try to get us to invest in our dream home or at least start the process of getting there by buying a first house. In fact, there are a number of government websites that provide all the information you could want.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is one of the key agencies dealing with homeownership. The department, better known as HUD, maintains a website listing the various programs it has, benefits and requirements of the same, and HUD homes that have been foreclosed on and are now for sale. You can visit the site by simply doing a search for HUD.
In the case of HUD, it is important to understand the agency does not actually write mortgage loans. Instead, it guarantees loans if you meet certain parameters. Essentially, this is like having a really rich uncle cosign your loan, something banks love. In fact, down payments on HUD loans can very low given the fact the government is backing them.
If you have served in the armed forces of your country, you are almost always designated a veteran. While salaries in the armed forces are not particularly high, the benefits can definitely make up for it. In addition to college loans and such, veterans receive mortgage loan breaks through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Known as the VA, you can get major help with loans on first homes and even use programs to get into VA foreclosed properties. Just search for VA to see their website.
Whether you pursue a HUD or VA loan, you should make sure to check out the programs available. You may find out that there is down payment assistance or low terms that are available to you, a situation that will save you a ton of money.
Recently we have witnessed a boom in the mortgage industry. With increasing real estate values and a very low inflation, interest rates have touched an all time low. Since inflation is running extremely low at present, economists feel that mortgage rates will remain low in the near future also. As an obvious consequence homeowners are giving serious thoughts to the effects of low mortgage rate.
Usually, mortgage lenders offer a variety of combinations of interest rates and points. For example, 6.0% and 2 points, 6.5% and 1 point or 7.0% and no points. Points are a one-time upfront payment that the borrower makes to the lender at the time of closing the mortgage. It is a fee like the interest and not a part of the down payment. A drop in mortgage interest rates reduces the cost of borrowing and should logically result in an increase in prices in a market where most people borrow money to purchase a home (for instance, in the United States), so that average payments remain constant.
One of the direct effects of low mortgage rate is that the homeowners opt for greater savings through refinancing. Hence the cost to savings ratio is exceeded. Refinancing can be a boon in several situations since some of the main reasons to refinance are: – Lower interest rate – Consolidate 2nd mortgage loan – Lower loan term – Lower monthly payments – Payoff other personal loans and – Take cash out from equity
One of the most intriguing effects of low mortgage rate is the dilemma faced by the borrowers about whether to reduce their payments or the length of the loan term itself. Lower rates allow you to reduce your mortgage from say 25 years remaining to 15 years remaining with the same monthly payment. The next thing you would like to do is refinance again so that you will be able to reduce it to 10 years.
Another common rationale for refinancing and taking the equity out of your house as an effect of low mortgage rate is to be able to pay off credit card debt. You can also opt for a debt consolidation loan. By reducing your payment you will be able to pay off higher rate debt like credit cards. But try to eliminate interest payments wherever possible. The average credit card will have an interest rate of 18% to 25%. You can actually get rid of those high rate credit cards by taking advantage of the low mortgage rates. Also by lowering your debt you will be actually saving for the future.
It is also vital to understand that in most cases the loans are adjustable rate mortgages. The adjustment period may vary significantly depending on the loan program you are considering. You might not realize the effects of low mortgage rate unless you consider the stability and vulnerability of the interest rate that you are required to pay throughout the repayment tenure. Hence it is important to bear in mind that not only the current effects of low mortgage rate, but also effects of any future rise in interest rates should be considered when opting for a variable rate mortgage.
Over the last few years, many people squeezed into new homes using adjustable rate mortgages. With interest rates going up, you now need a new interest rate strategy
Adjustable Rate Mortgages ARMs
Adjustable rate mortgages carry a bit of a gamble for home owners. Essentially, you trade smaller interest rates and lower initial payments on the gamble rates will not increase over time. If rates stay low, you make out like a bandit. If rates increase, you need to consider your options to avoid getting stuck with a high interest rate loan and resulting cash flow problems from increased monthly mortgage payments.
For the last three or four years, adjustable rate mortgages have been offered with incredibly low interest rates. Many people used these low, low, low rates to buy homes that would otherwise be beyond their means. Starting in 2004, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan started making noises about increasing money borrowing rates. He has followed through on these hints. Although mortgage rates arent tied directly to the Federal Reserve Bank, they are heavily influenced by it. As a result, many people are now facing tight finances.
Avoid Rising Rates
There are really only two solutions for avoiding the increase in interest rates on adjustable rate mortgages. The first strategy is to immediately convert to a fixed rate mortgage product. Fixed rates are still at historic lows when compared to rates offered over the last 50 years. By flipping to a fixed rate, you will be able to solidify your budget and finances since you will know exactly what you have to pay each month. If rates decrease in the future, you can always try to flip back to an adjustable mortgage loan.
Unfortunately, some home owners are simply going to have to face the fact they lost one the interest rate gamble. Typically, this will occur when you realize you simply cant afford to make the monthly payments required by getting a fixed rate loan. In such a situation, you are going to have to sell your home and downsize. In most situations, it is better to do this now since youve probably built up a sizeable chunk of equity over the last few years and want to avoid a loss of that equity as the market cools down. While this may sound like a disaster, it really isnt. Yes, you have to downsize, but you should still have built up a chunk of equity.
Interest rates are going up whether you want to acknowledge it or not. The time to deal with your adjustable rate mortgage is now, not when you straining to make payments.