Register Real Estate Advisors

These Top 5 Quick Credit Tips from Register Real Estate Advisors (RREA) will help you increase your overall credit score:

5. Never cancel a credit card that is more than two years old. Having a “seasoned” account will help your credit.

4. Increase your maximum allowable credit limit. If you have a credit card that is close to being maxed out, call your credit card company and ask for an increase in your credit limit.

3. Don’t max out your credit lines. Credit Bureaus don’t like that.

2. You should spread out your balances among your credit cards. You want your debt ratio on credit card balances and credit limits to be at 30% or less.

1. Call our in house lender to pre-qualify for a home and find out what your credit score is for FREE!

There are several lenders that I recommend to my clients, depending on their needs. If you need to get a loan pre-approval, call me for a reference. I work with lenders all the time and I can help you. You want to be sure the lender you are using is truthworthy, professional, and dedicated to getting you to the closing table so you can purchase your new home.

Would you like to know how much your mortgage payments will be?  I offer over 15 calculators for FREE on my website.  You can even email the printable results directly to your inbox or someone else to share.  To aid in your decision-making process when buying a home, you can use my handy calculators to calculate your monthly payment with PMI, insurance, and property taxes.  You can also “peek into the future” to see the remaining balance of your mortgage after several months or years of payments.  There’s a mortgage length calculator that allows homeowners to determine what their savings will be if they make larger monthly payments.  Ever wondered how much you will pay for every $1,000 of your mortgage loan?  I have a calculator for that!  I offer an affordability calculator so you can find out how much you can borrow from a lender.  You can calculate your tax savings after a home purchase.  The financial analysis inclues first year as well as total tax savings.  Is your old APR (Annual Percentage Rate) too high? Find out if you should refinance by estimating the benefits of refinancing using my calculator.  Learn how you can cut current monthly debt payments using money from your Home Equity Line Of Credit (HELOC.)  Do you need to know how much money you must earn to purchase the house of your dreams? I offer a calculator that will help you figure it out.  What is better: take a second loan or pay PMI?  Housing market moving up too fast? Figure out how much you can afford with an interest only mortgage loan.  Interest-Only loans can drastically cut your mortgage payments, but what if you want to pay something toward your principal? Figure all of this out using my calculators.  Can’t decide which loan offer is better? Input your numbers to lock-in the best offer.  You heard that bi-weekly payments can significantly decrease the time of mortgage payoff?  Ioffer a calculator for that, too.  Still renting an apartment and thinking about a home purchase? I have a calculator that can help you make the final decision.  All of my calculators are FREE and the results can be emailed directly to you so you can easily share or print out the information.  Click Here to get started.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Realtor.org) – The Federal Housing Administration (FHA) yesterday relaxed what is known as the “anti-flipping rule.”  FHA now provides mortgage insurance for some purchases in which the seller bought the property and held it for fewer than 90 days.  The change was made to speed up sales of renovated homes in communities with too many bank-owned and foreclosed homes, said FHA Commissioner David H. Stevens.

If you intend to pay off your mortgage as quickly as possible, then you’re in the majority; a survey released in 2008 by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation claims that more than 75 per cent of survey respondents who bought a home in the last year said being mortgage-free sooner was their goal.

Of course wanting to be mortgage-free sooner is easier said then done, but there are some tips that can help you along the way to reach your goal quicker.

Make the largest down payment you can afford.

Fact is, the more you put down the less you’ll have to pay back; not just in the principal but in interest too.

Make more mortgage payments.

There are two ways to go about doing this; both will save you some money along the way but one more so than the other.

Your first option is to pay twice a month (or whatever frequency works best for you) the total you would normally pay on a monthly payment plan. For example, if your monthly mortgage payment is $1,000 you can opt to make two payments a month of $500 each. You’re not paying any more than you have to each month, although you will save on interest by making part of your monthly total payment early.

Your second option is to pay weekly or bi-weekly payments in lieu of a monthly payment. Why does this save you money? Well, not only will you save money on interest like you would with the first option, but it’s also a way you might not notice that you actually are making a couple of extra payments each year. Let’s say for example, your monthly mortgage payment is $1,000 for a total of $12,000 per year. If instead you decide to pay $500 every two weeks, you’ll actually end up putting $13,000 a year against your mortgage.

Make pre-payments or anniversary payments.

Even if you have a closed mortgage, most mortgages allow you to make “extra” payments, once a year, for up to 20% of the mortgage owed. This money is applied to the principal, saving you money in annual interest costs.

When interest rates drop, keep your payments the same.

If interest rates decrease when it is time to renew your mortgage, consider keeping your payments the same; since less money will go towards paying interest, more will go to paying down the principal.

Choose a shorter length of time to repay your loan.

Look at all your amortization options to see how choosing a 15-year period versus a 20-year period versus a 25-year period will affect your payments and interest costs. Your mortgage payments will be higher, but you’ll pay far less interest over the course of the loan. Do this exercise at the end of each mortgage term as what may have worked for you 5 years ago, might not be the best option for you now.
This article is a guest post from http://www.kanetix.ca

There is a difference between the terms Pre-Approval and Pre-Qualify when you are shopping for a Home or Mortgage.

Pre-Approval – uses basic information as well as electronic credit reporting to determine whether a lender will loan you money. If you are pre-approved for a mortgage, the lender has given you a commitment to support your new purchase.  It is a firm decision on a home loan and makes you a “cash buyer” in the seller’s eyes.  This gives you increased bargaining power.

Pre-Qualification – it is not a mortgage approval but simply an estimate of what you can afford to borrow. When ou pre-qualify for a mortgage, the lender also collects basic information regarding your income, monthly debts, credit history and assets, and then uses this information to calculate an estimated mortgage amount. The lender has not yet committed to supporting your financial needs and, therefore, you have not received an actual guarantee of funds.  It is not an assurance of mortgage approval.

People who are pre-approved for a mortgage are more attractive candidates to the seller and have a better chance of getting the property when they make an offer. Most sellers will not even consider a contract from a buyer that does not include a pre-qualication letter with the offer.