Average house prices in the UK have now risen to around GBP160,000. This means a couple buying their first home would need a deposit of at least GBP8,000 and a combined yearly income of GBP50,000. Of course, this assumes that they can still get a mortgage with a relatively high loan to value (LTV) rate of 95%.

Despite recent cuts to the base interest rate by the Bank of England, many mortgage providers are failing to pass these cuts on to consumers. In a move born from greed, mortgage providers are keen to protect their profit margins at the expense of first time buyers, looking to get a foot on the property ladder.

Equally, with so many established home owners able to use the equity from record breaking house price rises in the last few years, it is becoming more and more difficult for first time buyers to find competitive mortgages. The high LTV first time buyers require also weighs heavily against them when compared against the equity heavy home owners who are moving properties.

In the face of the deepening subprime crisis, and facing significant profit cuts or even losses, mortgage lenders are now tightening their lending criteria. The fear is that the 95% LTV mortgages days are numbered, as lenders push for larger deposits and smaller LTVs. On top of this lenders are weighting interest rates to discourage borrowers from taking up high LTV mortgages, forcing buyers to come up with much higher deposits.

The increasing cost of University education is also taking it’s toll. With UK students leaving University with an average of GBP13,000 of debt, it is taking longer for buyers to save up their deposits. Student loans are no longer the sole source of debt for students, with reckless lending by banks and a number of credit cards aimed at students all increasing the burden of debt for many young people.

Juggling their existing debts while struggling to qualify for lenders’ increasingly harsh mortgage qualification criteria is making mortgages for first time buyers tougher than ever. With a gloomy financial outlook, both for the UK and globally, this trend looks set to continue for some time.

Tom Kranz writes articles on debt prevention and management, debt management solutions, and debt management programs. His articles regular appear on finance-portal.co.uk.

Some of the normal reasons to choose renting over buying a home include plans to relocate in the next couple of years or a low rent payment. But in the current economy, renting could make sense for a number of reasons. Renting gives financial flexibility, allowing people to save or invest. Other than deposits and the monthly rental payments, there is no large initial outlay of money. There are no maintenance costs and time does not need to be set aside for upkeep.

It is important to consider the costs inherent to buying a home, such as down payments, closing costs, interest, insurance, and upkeep. Suze Orman, a financial analyst for CNBC, points out that the American dream of home ownership can turn into a nightmare for those buyers that get in over their heads. The wave of foreclosures across the nation can attest to that reality.

The pitfalls of home ownership now include buying a home that may lose value, as well as the difficulty of getting a loan in the first place. According to the National Association of Realtors, existing home sales fell 8.6 percent in November. The median sales price fell 13.2 percent in November to $181,300, from $208,000 a year ago. That was the lowest national median price since February 2004. Which could mean it’s a great time to buy, or it could mean home values will continue to fall.

Home ownership is more than about just a place to live, it is an investment. The portion of your monthly payment that goes toward principle ideally raises the equity in your home each month. These days the return on the investment all has to do with long-term plans and the economic outlook. But look at it this way, the rent money goes totally into someone else’s pocket each month. There is a strong possibility that your home value will increase with time, especially if you plan to stay put for a number of years.

There are other benefits to buying a home, such as knowing your exact payment for the next 15 to 30 years, which can help with planning and budgets. Rent payments are likely to increase on an annual basis. There is also the potential to pay off the loan and have no monthly mortgage payment. There are the intangible benefits to consider as well, like pride in ownership and belonging to a community through being part of a neighborhood.

There is certainly no reason to rush into buying a home. In these uncertain economic times there may be good reason to be cautious. But there are also good reasons to be a buyer, such as historically low interest rates and lower home prices. Bankrate.com has a good calculator that can help crunch the numbers. If renting is what ends up being the best option, be sure to invest and save each month as well.

Ki’s real estate business is based in Austin, Texas. His website provides future home buyers with a free search of the Austin MLS. It gives comprehensive information on Austin real estate a few free mortgage calculators for visitors.

In 1870 it became the first province created from the territories. Louis Riel named the new Province Manitoba which is related to the Algonquian word Manitou, meaning spirit. Manitoba, in the Red River Valley region, contained the first western colony and settlement of Canada. Manitoba is the only Canadian Province with an Arctic deep water sea port, located in Churchill, Manitoba, along Hudson Bay. Manitoba’s sea port is the only link along the shortest shipping route between Asia and Europe.

Manitoba is located in Western Canada and borders the U.S. states of North Dakota and Minnesota to the south, Nunavut and Hudson Bay to the north, Saskatchewan to the west, and Ontario to the east. The province has a large coastline boardering Hudson Bay and contains the tenth-largest fresh-water lake in the world, Lake Winnipeg, along with two other large lakes: Lake Manitoba and Lake Winnipegosis.

Manitoba’s lakes cover approximately 14.5% or 94,241 km2 of its surface area. Lake Winnipeg is the largest lake within the borders of southern Canada, and the east side has some of the last remote and intact watersheds left in the world. The large rivers that flow into the east side of Lake Winnipeg’s basin are pristine, with no major developments along them. Many uninhabited islands can be found along the eastern shore of this lake.

There are over 110,000 lakes spread throughout the province. The Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) (CPC-ML) is a Canadian federal Marxist-Leninist political party. It is not to be confused with the Communist Party of Canada. The party is registered with Elections Canada as the Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada. Elections Canada, the agency which oversees elections and political parties, claimed that, in order to avoid confusion among voters, it could not allow political parties to register with similar names.

In this case, Elections Canada argues that allowing the party to use its preferred name could cause confusion with the Communist Party of Canada- a decision opposed by the CPC-ML. Manitoba is governed by a unicameral legislature, the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba, which operates under the Westminster system of government. The executive branch is formed by the majority party and the party leader is the Premier of Manitoba, the head of government.

The head of state is represented by the Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba, who is appointed by the Governor General of Canada on advice of the Prime Minister of Canada. The head of state is mainly a ceremonial and a figurative role today. The legislative arm of the Government of Manitoba consists of the 57 Members elected to represent the people of Manitoba. The horseshoe arrangement of the members seats within the Chamber is unique in Canada.

Manitoba’s primary political parties are the New Democratic Party of Manitoba, the Progressive Conservative Party of Manitoba and the Liberal Party of Manitoba. The Legislative Assembly of Manitoba and the lieutenant governor form the Legislature of Manitoba, the legislative branch of government in the Canadian province of Manitoba. Fifty-seven members are elected to this assembly in provincial general elections, all in single-member constituencies with first-past-the-post voting. The Manitoba Legislative Building is located in central Winnipeg, at the meeting point of the Wolseley and Fort Rouge constituencies.

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Step 1 – The Bank Records Notice Of Default

The first step of the foreclosure process is when the bank officially records the notice of default. This is the first day you miss the payment on your house. This usually does not really occur on the first payment but after a few missed payments. This depends on the bank and how they do the foreclosure process. Some banks begin the foreclosure process after two payments while others begin the process after three or four.

Step 2 – Reinstatement Of Loan

The second step to the foreclosure process is the reinstatement of the loan. The loan can be reinstated by you. This means that just because the foreclosure process has begun does not mean you have lost your house. You don’t technically lose your home until the home has sold through an auction. If you can come up with the money to pay the missed payments and the late fees then you can reinstate your home loan. This is possible to do up until 5 days prior to the sale of the home through an auction.

Step 3 – Bank Sets Date Of Foreclosure

The third step of the foreclosure process is that the bank will set a date of foreclosure. This is usually 3 months after the notice of default is set or around 90 days. The home owner can continue to live in the home until this date. No one will come and evict you out of the home before this set date has arrived.

The next thing that will happen is that the notice of trustee sale prepared. It is also published as public information that the home is up for foreclosure. A copy is mailed to you and posted on the home.

Step 4 – Selling The House At The Foreclosure Auction

The final step to the foreclosure process is that the house is sold at the foreclosure auction. This can go two ways. Someone may bid at the auction on the home and the purchase it at a lower price than what you owe on the loan. If this is the case then the new owner will immediately have you removed from the home. This eviction can happen in less than 24 hours by the sheriff. If the home does not sell at the auction then the bank will still own the home. The bank may work toward evicting you right away. However, banks usually hire a company to take care of the home until they can sell it. This could give the home owners a few weeks.

Conclusion

So in summary – how does foreclosure work? The ideal time frame for a foreclosure to occur is around 3 months for a bank. This is what they would tell you. However, the actual time frame for a closure can take from 6 months to a year depending on how long the process takes and if the home sells at the auction. If you are going through the foreclosure process you don’t have to move out of the home right away.

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For an owner builder to lock in an interest rate on the permanent mortgage prior to even beginning construction on the home, it would be a great advantage. Consider that most loan products on simpler purchase and refinance mortgages will allow you to lock in the interest rate for a period of 15, 30, or maybe 45 days at best. Now consider that an owner builder loan has a typical construction timeframe of twelve months. That’s a rate lock that will need to last for 365 days.

Therefore, to achieve this unusually long rate lock, an owner builder will need to find a construction loan that is a true construction-to-permanent loan, meaning there is only one closing that covers the entire process. The land purchase, the construction phase, and the permanent mortgage are all wrapped into one product. In this way, the loan can establish the permanent rate up front, prior to the start of construction. And, in this way, the owner builder can take advantage of today’s relatively low interest rates.

Looking at the big picture, specifically the country’s long term history of interest rates, you can get a 30 year fixed mortgage today at an interest rate that is pretty close to the lowest rates ever available. In other words, there is no reason to believe that interest rates are going to go down over the long term. Focusing on the big picture, interest rates will have to trend higher eventually.

So, if you want to build your new home with an owner builder construction loan, you may need a full twelve months to complete the construction. You will be managing the process yourself, overseeing the sub-contractors and the delivery of the materials. Therefore, twelve months is not an unrealistic timeframe for the construction period.

If you can lock in your permanent rate now, prior to construction, you can protect yourself against the possibility of interest rate increases over the course of the following year. For example, an owner builder who locks in an interest rate of 6.25% today for a 30 year fixed mortgage on a $250,000 loan will save almost $60,000 over the next 30 years as compared to someone who gets a fixed interest rate of 7.25%. Just that one percent increase in rate will make a difference of almost $60,000 over the life of the mortgage.

Therefore, if your owner builder loan offers the option of locking in the permanent rate prior to construction, then you may want to jump at the chance while the federal government is attempting to keep rates as low as possible to stimulate the economy. However, some people will feel that locking the permanent rate now is depriving them of the chance to hitting the jackpot in case interest rates happen to decrease over the next twelve months.

Though interest rates today are relatively near their historic lows, there is always a chance that they could go down even more over the next year. Therefore, make sure that your owner builder construction loan provides some protection for you. For example, if your loan does not have any pre-payment penalties on the permanent rate, then you can always refinance once you are done building your home. This refinance will act like a second closing, so there will be some closing costs involved. However, if you plan to stay in the home for a long time, the savings over the life of the mortgage should be well worth it.

For an owner builder construction loan to offer a permanent rate lock that lasts a full twelve months instead of the standard 15 days or 30 days, it provides a great opportunity for you to take advantage of the current rates before you ever even hammer the first nail for your new home. And, if you want even more protection in the event that rates drop even more over the next year, then make sure your owner builder loan provides an easy means for you to refinance upon completion of construction – though you probably will never need it.

Chris Esposito works with the Owner Builder 101 program to provide owner builder construction loans for people who wish to manage the construction of their own homes, without hiring a general contractor. Visit OwnerBuilder101.com, or call (877) 876-3688.