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So you want to buy a home? Unsure whether you will qualify?

I am here to tell you that applying and qualifying for a home loan is not as difficult as climbing Mount Everest or running a marathon, but there are some basic things that all lenders look for in your application. You can be lacking in one or two of these areas, but you must be strong in most of them in order to obtain a home mortgage. Let’s explore the 7 things that lenders look for when determining if you are worthy of a loan.

Job Stability: Lenders want to see a 2 year employment history on your application. The best situation is if you have been with the same employer for two consecutive years or more. Frequent job changes or gaps in employment of more than a month must be explained and can jeopardize your chances of obtaining the loan.

Own a business? Business owners must also document a 2 year history of the business by providing a letter from their CPA stating that they have been in business for at least 2 years, or provide a business license showing the start date of the business, at least 2 years prior to application.

Don’t have the 2 year history? Don’t worry, if you are strong in the other 6 categories listed below, you can still obtain a mortgage. There are “No Doc” loans designed especially for you. With a No Doc loan, the lender does not verify your employment history, and you don’t have to disclose it. However, you will pay a higher interest rate for this mortgage. Read more of this >>

A lot has changed in the lending industry since the beginning of the year.

Lenders are going bankrupt, Wall Street and the Secondary Market have stopped purchasing “high risk” loans (High LTV-Stated and No Doc, High LTV-Low FICO, and High LTV-NOO lending niches are considered “high risk”) and good loan programs for people with bad credit are being eliminated or revised. All this converging together is making it harder for those with bad credit to get a mortgage or get a mortgage with a good interest rate.

Find out what happened, who’s left and what your options are.

What Happened?

Seventy-Seven (That’s right—77) bad credit mortgage lenders have closed their doors for good since the beginning of the year—here are some of the notables:

- Southstar Funding (RIP 4-02-2007): Over 5.5 billion dollars in loans originated in 2005, employing over 700 employees, lending in more then 30 states and voted the “best company to work for” by Atlanta Business Chronicle in 2004.

- MLN (RIP 12-29-2006) One of the first to close their doors and one of the top 3 bad credit mortgage lenders in the country.

- Fremont (RIP 3-2-2007): One of the top ten bad credit mortgage lenders in the country.

Why Did This Happen?

A number of factors brought about the bad credit mortgage lender meltdown—issues like increasing interest rates, high national foreclosure rate, loan buybacks, defaults on warehouse line commitments and Wall Street & Secondary Market’s declining appetite for these types of “high risk loans”.

Who’s Left?

Not many…

Those that are still offering bad credit mortgages have realigned their positions with risk and the remaining bad credit mortgage loans being offered today are harder to qualify for then they were 6-7 months ago.

Here are few of the remaining bad credit mortgage lenders still offering bad credit mortgage loans Read more of this >>

It always is exciting to begin looking at homes for sale in your area, bigger and perhaps nicer than the property you currently own. Before you let the excitement carry you away and make an offer for homes for sale, first check your FICO score to ensure you can purchase homes for sale at the best rate.

If your score is below 600 for any reason, you need to take corrective action. Better to put off looking for homes for sale, until you can purchase one at a good rate. Otherwise, you will be paying thousands more than necessary for your homes for sale over the life of the mortgage. A score below 600 puts you at a disadvantage with homes for sale lenders; but with dedication and lots of effort on your part, you can improve your FICO score and get the better mortgage rate and terms for your homes for sale. This article gives you ways to improve your FICO score and your credit report.

Payment History

Your payment history accounts for 35 percent of your FICO score and has the biggest impact on purchasing homes for sale. It covers your timeliness of payments, bankruptcy, liens, wage garnishments, collections, delinquent accounts, and the severity of the delinquencies — all very important data to the homes for sale lender. Do the following to improve your payment history:

• Catch up any delinquent bills and make them current. Begin with the revolving credit accounts and then the smallest to the largest account balances. Then, stay current.

• Begin paying all bills on time. Read more of this >>

Refinancing your house can save you money. Even with the interest rates climbing, they are still at the lowest levels in decades and now is a good time to refinance your home before the rates climb higher. Before choosing a lender to refinance your current mortgage, consider a few key factors and analyze your options. Your current interest rate, the length of time you plan to stay in your home, your credit rating, and the value of your home are all important issues to consider when looking at refinancing your house. Let’s concentrate on your credit score and how it effects refinancing.

A credit score or rating is something that every adult with a credit report has. This is commonly known as a FICO score, which is a credit score developed by Fair Isaac & Co. Credit scoring. This is a method of determining the likelihood that credit users will pay their bills. Lenders analyze your credit scores to determine whether or not to approve a home mortgage, a car purchase and nearly all other types of loans. Your credit score can have a huge impact upon your future and those with a good credit rating can look forward to a far brighter financial future than those with poor credit scores. So, how exactly is your credit score determined?

Before lending you money, creditors want to determine how much of a risk you are—in other words, how likely you are to repay the money they loan you. Credit scores help them do that, and the higher your score, the less risk they feel you’ll be. The rewards of raising your score speak directly to your wallet: You’ll qualify for more loans and be offered better interest rates. Your credit report contains a range of information relating to your financial situation, including the money you owe or have borrowed, your repayment habits, any missed or late payments, court judgments and bankruptcies, any loan applications you have made, and any loan refusals. Your credit rating can be affected adversely in many ways, and this can include missing or late payments, as well as being turned down for credit by lenders and merchants.

Credit Scoring Analyzes Five Areas of Your Credit Report Read more of this >>

Owning a home is the ultimate American dream. It is also the best way to build wealth for yourself and for future generations. Having bad credit should not prevent you from owning a piece of the American dream.

If you have poor credit – you are not alone. It is estimated that approximately 30 million Americans struggle with bad credit from having excessive credit card debt and not paying their bills on time. Unfortunately, rising medical costs, job layoffs, ridiculous gas prices and escalating home prices are exacerbating the rate at which Americans are falling into the bad credit pit.

Without a doubt, no other process renders you more ashamed and more aware of your bad credit score than the act of purchasing a home. Buying a house with good credit is horrendous enough, for first time homebuyers. For people with bad credit, it is an act of congress but it need not be. Here are four easy ways to buy a house with bad credit.

Keep it in the family. Get a relative who has good credit to purchase the house on your behalf. A family member with a solid credit history, will get a good interest rate thereby making your monthly mortgage payments more affordable. You will also get some exposure to the home buying process without being overwhelmed.After your relative closes on the house, you must take over the mortgage payments, insurance and taxes. This will ensure that you get the tax benefits of being a home owner right away. Arrange for your relative to sign a “Grant Deed,” to add your name to the title of the property. This makes you a co-owner of the house. Read more of this >>

In the present era, a home is not just a place where you live together with your family. It has become more of a status symbol that reflects your lifestyle. Every one competes to make his home look better than others. However, lack of funds must be pulling you back in this race. Unsecured home improvement loan gives you the much-needed push to help you win this race and have a home that is the envy of others.

Unsecured home improvement loan forms one of the simplest method to finance home improvements. An unsecured home improvement loan is a personal loan, which is not secured against the property of the borrower.

The advantage of taking an unsecured home improvement loan is that it does not put borrower’s property at risk. The loan provider cannot repossess borrower’s property in case of default on loan. The loan is best suited for people who do not own property and living as tenants. Property owners too can apply for the loan.

Home improvements imply any improvement desired by borrower in his home or apartment. Home improvements that one intends to make may vary from person to person. Remodeling kitchen, adding a new conservatory, furnishing children room with bunk bed, can all be sufficient reasons for drawing unsecured home improvement loans. Read more of this >>

Is this the question that you are constantly asking yourself? How can I buy a home even if I don’t qualify for a sub-prime loan? What if I told you that you still could buy a home even when you get turned down for a home loan. I bet you are kind of scratching your head right now… How is that possible? How can I get in a home even when I don’t qualify for conventional financing?

Well here are a few answers:
1. You will have to be creative in your offer to the seller.
2. You need seller’s who has a need to sell: Relocating, etc
3. You need sellers who are open minded to listening to another way of getting there property sold.

So why no one every told me that there was a different way? Well because a lot of people don’t know how to think differently. I was talking with a group the other day and it seem like they where saying that if a new pair of jeans come out and it becomes stylish then we all tend to buy them based on the crowd. It’s the same way as buying a home. We have become so use to hearing lenders say no until after the third no we usually give up. What I want you to do is snap out of it! Stop allowing the no’s to keep you from moving forward in trying to purchase a home. I’ve learned that you have to get pass the no’s to get to a YES….. Just like right now you are ready to buy your next home and your lender has turned you down….. Here is the question to ask your lender: Read more of this >>

These days it’s all too easy to have your credit slip down a few notches. If you are looking to refinance, that’s not where you want to be, but it’s not the end of the world either. Let your FICO score dip below 680 and you could be a candidate for bad credit mortgage refinancing. It depends on the individual lender. Let it get down around 650 or worse and you’ll be a bad credit refinance candidate for sure. With the recent shakeup in the sub-prime lending market, many lenders are being more selective about who they’ll extend refinance loans to. They’ll be looking seriously at your recent credit history. Several sub-prime lenders have ceased operations or declared bankruptcy, so there are fewer options available to borrowers in the sub-prime category.

Even so, you can still refinance, bad credit or not. There are options available to you, so you can take advantage of better interest rates. This can be especially important if you purchased your home using an adjustable rate mortgage, and the 3 or 5 year initial period is about to expire. When it does, your mortgage will adjust upward. This can cost you an extra $200 – $600 per month in higher mortgage payments. Many people don’t have the financial wherewithal to absorb such an increase in their mortgage payment. Even if you do, there’s little reason to do so when you can refinance and avoid the payment increase. Read more of this >>

One of the first steps to take before you start looking for your dream home is to ask yourself what you can afford to spend on a monthly house payment. Ask real estate agents, real estate brokers, lenders and any other real estate professional you know any questions you have about real estate financing, home mortgages, home loans, commercial mortgages, refinancing and current mortgage rates and get quotes, even if you have bad credit; you can learn a lot in a short period of time. Bit of trivia- this year alone, Americans are expected to borrow $1.33 trillion in acquiring 7.4 million houses, condominiums and co-ops.

Some lenders may impose limits on how much of your down payment can come from borrowing from other sources. Make sure to get an estimate of your real estate financing closing costs from the lender you’ve chosen; by law, the lender is required to provide his statement to you within three days of receiving your loan application. Most of all you’ll need to determine what price range you can afford to buy in.

Loan programs for down payments of twenty percent or less require you to purchase Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI). When financing real estate it’s important to know that a low FICO credit score does not mean you won’t qualify for a home loan or home mortgage. 30-year fixed-rate mortgages offer consistent monthly payments for all of the 30 years you have the mortgage; if the market is good, you can benefit from locking in a lower rate for the full term of the loan. Read more of this >>

There is just too much at stake for the lender and the borrower. Being proactive is the rule of the day. In the area of Adjustable Rate Mortgages, lenders are pre-empting “payment shock” by calling months ahead to determine the budget status of families looking down the barrel of a huge increase. Some lenders who are able through this intervention to obtain the whole story that will allow for skipping a payment called a forbearance process where the arrears are made up in smaller parallel payments while continuing on with the regular payment. Lenders are hedging their bets by getting involved in the non-payment or late payment profile process early on to dampen losses resulting from foreclosure.

Three years ago Aaron and Gwendolyn moved from sharing an apartment to marriage to having a set of twins to buying their first home. Aaron four years out of college was employed at a local engineering firm specializing in water treatment and sewer/water construction work for several cities and counties in a 60-mile radius. Aaron started at an entry-level engineering position and was working his way up project by project. He was working to passing exams and satisfying requirements to become a Professional Engineer and thus command more money. The pay increases due to a slowing workload were lagging what was projected. Gwendolyn is a Registered Nurse worked a flexible schedule of three twelve-hour shifts per week and since she worked from six in the evening to six in the morning they were able to avoid any outside childcare. This gave her plenty of time with the twins who were experiencing the terrible twos period of pleasantry. Read more of this >>