Equity Home Loan

Getting a 30 year home loan used to be a popular choice among most home owners. The reason being the total home loan payment is being spread out across a longer time period so you can pay less each month. Plus with interest rates fixed for the 30-year period, it seems a good deal. Or is it?

The one big benefit of a 30-year home loan is that you pay lower monthly payments however, you need to take into consideration that you actually pay more in interest than someone who has a 10-year home loan. So the longer the home loan period, the more you actually pay.

To illustrate the difference the home loan period makes, here is an example. Lets say for a 30-year home loan, the interest rate is 7%. The home loan is $100,000. Thats means your monthly payment is about $665.00. It also means the interest paid for the 30 years is around $140,000. Now suppose for a 15-year home loan with the same interest and total home loan amount. The monthly payment is around $870.00 and the total interest over 15 years is around $56,800.

So by opting for the 15-year home loan, you actually save $83,200 in total.

A longer home loan period does offers you more flexibility in that if your financial situation were to take a turn for the worse, for example, you just lost your job and jobless for the past few months. A lower monthly home loan payment helps to alleviate some of the financial problems.

So which is better? The longer or shorter home loan plan? My recommendation is if you have the financial knowledge and your financial situation is stable, it would be a good choice to take the 30-year loan and invest the savings otherwise pay towards the monthly payments. The long term payoff of your investment may match or exceeds the money you go towards repaying your home loan.

On the other hand, if you do not have the financial stability and knowledge, I would recommend for a shorter home loan. Yes, you do pay more each month but overall you will pay less for the home loan plan. Also you get to accrue equity in your home much faster which can be used to improve your credit score or FICO.

While a 30-year or even a 40-year home loan sounds attractive to most home buyers, there are some questions that needs to be answered before getting one. It is my hope that this article can help to educate home buyers some of the points that needs to be considered seriously before choosing the home loan period.

Ricky Lim works in a finance company specialising in home loan consulting. Get more information, tools and resources on home loans, visit his site: http://about-homeloan.com

He also operates a student loan information site

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The number one reason why some homeowners have difficulty getting a home equity loan is because of bad credit. In my company, we called it bad credit home equity loan.

If you have bad credit and is trying to repair your credit score, it helps to understand how credit score is tabulated and the factors going into credit score.

Credit score or FICO is created by Fair Isaac Corporation. It is a value that is used widely by many lenders to determine the interest rate that you will be charged as the homeowner. The credit score value range from 300 to 850. The lower your credit score, the higher your interest payment will be. Bad credit home equity loan applicants usually have a credit score lower than 600.

Your credit score is really like your financial score sheet detailing every major transaction you have with the lenders. So who keep tracks of your credit score? In the united states, it is done by the three major financial institutions namely Transunion, Equifax and Experian.

The factors that they take into consideration when determining your credit score are the amount of money you owed to banks, lenders etc. The length and type of loan. For example, your credit card loan. Your history of whether you have paid your monthly loan or interest on time. The assets under your name. Examples are houses and cars. If you have a job, it also factors in your monthly salary.

Do note that your credit score may not be accurate from time to time. In fact, according to a recent survey, up to eighty percent of all credit scores are incorrect. I personally think it is not that high but there are cases where a persons credit score is unusually low even when they have a pretty good credit record and no outstanding loan owed.

If you think this is happening to you, you can question the credit score with the three major financial institutions I mentioned earlier.

What about for married couples applying for a home equity loan? The credit score is determined from the person with the most sizable income.

So in general, if you know you are going to apply for a home equity loan and has a bad credit, try to clear your current loans first. This will help to improve your credit rating. Another method you can use is to get a loan consolidation plan. By doing so, you are effectively paying up the previous loans and getting a new loan, therefore usually your credit score will increase.

Ricky Lim works in a finance company specialising in home equity loan consulting. Get more information, tools and resources on home loans, visit his site: http://about-homeloan.com

He also operates a student loan information site

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