Alan Lim asked:


A home equity loan is an excellent option to go for if you want to find a solution to your mind-blowing financial problems. If you have bought your home and have been paying for your mortgage for a while now, your home will surely have appreciated. This will entitle you to an increase in home equity, which you can use to borrow against. Here are some guidelines to help you in proper decision making when taking on a home equity loan:

What’s the difference between a Home equity loan and Home equity line of credit (HELOC)

A traditional home equity loan involves giving you lump sum cash, while a HELOC simply gives you a credit card or a check book which is set at a maximum amount which you can use for your purchases. Choosing from between the two should be a matter of personal decision, one that is based on your financial needs as of the moment. A traditional one may seem notorious as it tends to get used up more uncontrollably when in the wrong hands. However, if you look at it closely, the same problem can be encountered with a HELOC. Generally speaking, the closing costs for both are the same even if the HELOC involves a lot more workload for your lender. This is due to frequent accounting that needs to be made on your outstanding balance and frequent interest rate changes, which would have translated to higher fees.

Going for a Low Closing Cost Home Equity Loan

The competition in the market for mortgages today is quite heavy. Closing costs today has never been as ideal with excellent offers available. There are low closing cost loans, and there are even some who offer no closing costs. However, you should be vary when pursuing the latter as there are quite a number who do not offer excellent services - you get what you pay for (and not pay for) anyway. Usual closing costs involve appraisal, documentation fees, title examination, and so on. Closing costs from lenders vary greatly. If you want to get the best value, make sure you shop around for a reputable lender which will give you the best offer and a good closing cost.

What are the Costs Involved

The good news is that loaning against your home equity can be done without having to hurt your bank account. As was mentioned, most lenders offer low closing costs these days. The average closing cost today amounts to more or less one to 1.5% of your loan amount. This will surely be within reasonable budget considering the processes involved. Take note that taking on a home equity loan should be a lot cheaper and less complicated than first mortgages. It is just a matter of finding the best deal and negotiating with the right lender.



DOUGLAS

Marc asked:


I pay-for-click with yahoo, as if that is not enough, yahoo is using my domain search to advertise its websites, and aloud others to do so as well.

Proof of keyword search, “aapexmrtg” and result is listed bellow.

Yahoo! Answers - what is a REVERSE MORTGAGE and how does it work?
… Aapex Mortgage - No money down… www.aapexmrtg.com …answers.yahoo.com/question/?qid=1006060124154 - 32k - Cached - More from this site - Save

Find Today’s Rates on Mortgages, Refinance Loans, Home Equity Loans, and Mortgage Calculators on Yahoo! Real Estate
… No money down and 100% financing for first and second homes. www.aapexmrtg.com. Mortgage Loans Information Center …realestate.yahoo.com/loans/?sc=va&full=Virginia - 28k - Cached - More from this site - Save

Yahoo! Answers - is rajarhat in calcutta a good place to invest in property ?
… Aapex Mortgage - No money down… www.aapexmrtg.com …answers.yahoo.com/question/?qid=1006050601108 - 28k - Cached - More from this site -

LEON

WhoK asked:


We have 2 mortgages (1st & 2nd), my friend withdrew an other line of equity. What happens to the equity line loan if we sell this house short? Can we ask the bank to convert equity loan to personal loan and we continue to pay for it?
Sorry that I was not clear in the question. Basically, on this house, we have 3 loans: 1st mortgage with mortgage company A, 2nd mortgage with mortgage company B (we used 100% financing when bought this house), and the equity loan with a bank (3rd loan that my friend’ sister took out to do something else.)

Now we have problem with the first loan since it is ARM (we didn’t know when signing paper). The rate is reset, we start having problem to pay for it. We want to short sell the house, but not sure what to do with the 3rd loan: the equity loan. For the 1st / 2nd, we may have to pay the tax if the banks agree to let us short-sell the house and issue the 1099-C, but because the third loan (equity loan) is from another bank we are not sure if this bank agrees to release for us to sell the house or willing to renegotiate the loan for us to pay as personal loan.

ESTEBAN

gidget asked:


The house is appraised at $90,000. We are approved for it, however, the seller is only asking $85000 for it. I have no idea about mortgages! This is my first one and I’m wondering if we can borrow $90,000 (the value of the home) and pay the seller and keep the rest? Or can we just turn around and get a home equity loan?
I was just curious. Thank you for all the POSITIVE input and advice. We don’t NEED the $5000, but I just wondered if we could get it. As I said, I have NO idea how this process is going to go! That’s why I ASKED. I don’t appreciate some of the insulting responses. People are rude. But those of you who actually ANSWERED my question without being jerks about it, thank you so much. You’ve been very helpful. =)

JARRETT

Kirrhi Kreamer asked:


Home Equity Loans have quickly grown to become one of the greatest and most popular loan types in the world today. The idea that a person that is a home owner can go ahead and get a loan taken out on their home in order to deal with any emergency situations that might crop up is something that allows a lot of people to rest easy at night and ultimately the people that are able to rest easy are going to have lower stress levels and a better all around existence specifically because of the presence of the option of the home equity loan in their lives.

Now, home equity loans are quite good and what is even better is being able to understand the anatomy of a home equity loan and exactly how it shakes out in a number of different areas.

Interest Rates

One of the biggest questions that people usually have regarding home equity loans is the question of interest rates. When you take a look at the different interest rates that are available and indeed you take a look at the interest rates for other types of loans in comparison to the home equity loan, what you immediately find is that the people that are interested in getting the home equity loan for themselves pay a much lower interest rate on average than people that are involved in other loans.

This is because home equity loans have been created from a structural point of view to resemble mortgages. The average mortgage has an interest rate between 5% and 7% annually and when you look at the average home equity loan, you find the same thing is true as well.

Monthly Repayment Amounts

When you look at the different monthly repayment amounts for the different loans available on the market today, you tend to the see the exact same thing when comparing them to home equity loans that you did with the interest rates. Namely that home equity loans usually tend to be on average 10-20% lower per month in terms of the monthly repayment amounts. This is because of the presence of strong collateral (property is the strongest collateral imaginable in a free market society) as well as the longer term lengths when it comes right down to the actual loan deal itself.

Fees

Now, home equity loans, just like mortgages, sometimes carry a fee schedule with them. The fee schedule is an idea that financial institutions to a large degree have borrowed from credit cards, because for the longest time mortgages were not as restrictive as they are in today’s world.

When you take a look at the mortgages and home equity loans in today’s society, what you eventually see is that the fees tend to revolve around things like late payments, underpayments and even overpayments in certain agreements. Either way, the fees are not really a big part of most loan agreements, but it is worth mentioning that they might be there for full disclosure.



LANNY