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.

A couple of years ago, when the nation’s housing market was booming, so was the nation’s mortgage industry. People were buying and financing homes at a frantic pace, reaping the rewards of seemingly endless increases in home values. Owner builder construction loans were booming, as well.

This specialty product was a big hit, because the boom in the housing market meant that general contractors were going to charge a pretty premium for their services. Owner builder construction offered a nice alternative. A person could eliminate the costs of a builder by opting to manage the process without hiring a general contractor. The borrower would hire and manage the sub-contractors, and therefore save anywhere from 15% to 40% in equity in the new home.

This process worked great during the golden years of recent past. Whereas the average person who hired a licensed builder had to make a large down payment out of his own pocket if he wanted instant equity in his new home, an owner builder achieved the instant equity through the sweat that he or she put into managing the construction of the home.

However, what about today? Nowadays the housing market is pulling back, and values have dropped substantially. The nation’s economy has entered a recession. But, does owner builder construction still make sense? Are owner builder construction loans recession-proof?

To answer that question, we have to look back a couple of years one more time. When the market was booming and house prices were shooting upward, there was one drawback to construction – whether you hired a builder or managed the process yourself. The drawback was supply and demand. Contractors were not only expensive, but also difficult to work with due to an extremely high demand for their services. It was common for owner builders to find sub-contractors unresponsive to their requests for project estimates. In some areas around the nation, sub-contractors had a twelve month waiting list.

Let’s fast forward to today. The beauty of owner builder construction loans today is that there is an over supply of sub-contractor labor available to the borrower. As an owner builder, you can easily find sub-contractors who are willing to work for a fraction of their past costs. Why? Because sub-contractors are feeling the crunch just like the rest of us. The housing boom has ended, and there are many sub-contractors who are badly in need of work.

Therefore, today, an owner builder will find great labor rates when building his own home. The smart owner builder will request multiple bids from various sub-contractors. For example, you should get plumbing estimates from at least three plumbers in your area. In this way, you’ll find the best sub-contractor at the best rate. In fact, you may find that the sub-contractor will provide you with a bid to perform the labor only to reduce it as time goes by. It’s just a simple matter of supply and demand. The sub-contractors know they are competing for work, and therefore they are offering the best prices that have been seen in many years.

With the decreased labor costs, the good news is that owner builder construction still provides a great opportunity to earn instant equity in your home. You are still cutting out the fees of a licensed general contractor. And, you can still move into your new home with 15% to 40% equity. The key today is to smartly shop for the right sub-contractors to do the labor.

This does not mean than an owner builder should always hire the cheapest labor. Indeed, quality of work and professionalism are as important as ever. However, in today’s economy, the overall labor costs will be much lower, and an owner builder should take advantage.

Today, owner builder construction loans are especially useful if you want to limit the amount of cash that you put into your new home. Most mortgage products across the country are requiring larger down payments. Gone are the days of the ubiquitous 100% loan. But, owner builder loans still provide options for you to build with little to no cash out of your pocket. A good owner builder loan will be able to provide financing to cover all of your costs based on a strong spread between project costs and value.

Remember, an owner builder will build a home for costs that are well under the fair market value of the property. Even in today’s economy of dropping home prices, there will still be the same spread in cost versus value, because the sub-contractor labor costs are reduced.

Therefore, an owner builder loan that will end money up to 80% of your home’s value will typically be enough to cover 100% of your project costs. In other words, you can build your new home without spending a lot of cash out of your pocket. And, you’ll still move into it with a lot of instant equity due to the fact that you eliminated the general contractor costs that typically come with average construction projects.

So, even though the country’s economy has entered a period of recession as the housing market has pulled back significantly, an owner builder construction project will still offer some great benefits to the borrower. In the recent past, an owner builder would earn lots of sweat equity as house values were skyrocketing. Today, an owner builder will earn lots of sweat equity as sub-contractor labor costs are falling just as fast, or faster, than house prices.

Chris Esposito and Owner Builder 101 provide construction loans for people who wish to be owner builders and cut out the costs of a general contractor when building their own homes. Call (877) 876-3688 to speak with a representative or visit OwnerBuilder101.com.

What is an Endowment Policy?
Endowment policies are usually used to pay off interest-only mortgages. There are two parts to the policy; the investment, and life cover. The policy lasts for a set amount of time.

If the policy dies during this time, the mortgage is automatically paid off. If the holder is still alive at the end of the ‘life’ of the policy, it should be worth an amount which is enough to pay off the mortgage; but this is not guaranteed, it depends on how the markets perform.

In recent years, some policy holders have found that their endowment is unlikely to reach the valuation that was predicted when they took out the policy. This leaves them unable to finish paying off the mortgage, and can lead them to have to find other ways to pay off the mortgage. Consequentially Endowment Policies have not been as popular in recent years, with many lenders no longer offering them.

Pros
There is still a chance that your endowment will be worth enough at maturity to pay off your mortgage and some.

Cons
If the policy doesn’t perform as well as expected, it might not pay off the mortgage.

Endowment policies will only repay the assured sum if you die, you may have cause to buy extra life cover to provide for other debts.

When the policy expires, so does your life insurance.
How do I know if my Endowment will pay off my mortgage?
Speak to your endowment provider. If it seems likely that your policy is unlikely to be worth enough to pay off your mortgage at maturity you should speak to an Independent Financial Advisor (IFA). You can find your local IFA at Yell.

For more information you can contact the Financial Services Authority, who are in charge of dealing with complaints about endowment policies. It is also responsible for securing compensation for anyone who thinks they may have been wrongly sold an endowment mortgage.

There are private endowment buyers who are willing to purchase with-profit endowment policies of a certain type. This can recover some of the value of your endowment policy. Patient investors will buy up several small endowment policies and wait for them to mature, something you may be unable to do.

John Mce writes on behalf of AAP. Find out all you need to know about endowment surrender, selling endowments and cashing in policies from the UK largest buyer, AAP.

The best way to prevent this action would be to pay the holder or your mortgage. Mortgage loans are just like car loans, if you do not make payments you will lose it. So, this is identical to what will occur if someone fails to pay their mortgage – foreclosure will take their home from them.

A legal action filed by somebody who is unable to pay his debts is called as bankruptcy. These steps put a halt to proceedings against the debtor while the person is in bankruptcy.

At this point the lender has to stop all planned actions including a planned foreclosure action. But, a mortgage loan company may apply for relief from the mandatory stay, and once it is granted, can go ahead with the previously mentioned action.

In short, bankruptcy will not allow a debtor to retain a house without paying his debt to the mortgage lender, and it will not halt the foreclosure process. Bankruptcy may make your financial problems easier to handle, but it will not make them completely go away.

Bankruptcy can help give a person the needed time, and sometimes make it easier to pay their mortgage lender. It will not, however, stop foreclosure should they still not be able to pay. Since bankruptcy requires a mortgage lender to suspend a foreclosure action, a debtor has a little time to raise the money to pay the lender.

Bankruptcy can allow a person to not have to make certain payments and, therefore, he might have enough extra money to make payments on his mortgage. Additionally, chapter 13 bankruptcy allows a mortgagee to make payments on the mortgage over a court ordered period of time.

If you qualify for bankruptcy, which you may not, there are still legal fees to pay. The amount of money you need to get your mortgage payment current may be nothing compared to the legal fees you will have to pay. If you are of the mind that declaring bankruptcy may benefit your situation and help you get out of a foreclosure, a good lawyer should be able to answer your questions. Bankruptcy is complicated enough that you need to hire a lawyer who knows what he or she is doing.

This article contains information of a general nature, therefore if you have further questions on the matter you should discuss them with a licensed legal professional in your own state.

Anthony Dean has helped many home owners with the loan modification process. See how he can help with your loss mitigation here.WeSaveHomes.com

The FHA (Federal Housing Administration) offers you assistance in refinancing your present home mortgage, offering you several benefits on the side, too. The FHA actually acts as your guarantor so that lenders would feel more confident about providing you the funds that you need.

FHA Refinance Mortgages has a lot of experience in this field and can guarantee foolproof assistance. What they do is they insure your ability to pay off your loan. This way, lenders can then offer you a way better mortgage plan and rate while feeling confident that the borrowers are capable of repayment.

Most of the time, FHA loans are given out to borrowers that have good, long-standing credit scores. However, there are still some people who are still approved for these loans despite not having a good credit score. Some of these people have credit ratings that are far from impressive, but as long as they have no bankruptcy record for the past five years, then they still have a chance of getting such loans approved. Single parents whose income comes from only one source are also qualified for these loans. As long as you qualify, FHA can certainly be of much assistance to you.

What then is the difference between the conventional mortgage and the FHA Streamline Refinance Mortgage? FHA Refinance Mortgage benefits should be outlined to answer this question. Firstly, more exclusive mortgage options are offered by FHA Refinance Home Loans. Secondly, a down payment of just 3% is needed on the part of borrowers. Closing costs can then be financed via the mortgage. Thirdly, FHA is willing to assist you in finding homes and lending scenarios that do not require borrowers to make down payments. Fourthly, FHA loans also cover mobile housing as well as manufactured housing. Moreover, you are allowed to use the money you borrowed through your second mortgage to deal with the repairs of your own home.

By educating yourself on the basics of FHA loans and what FHA Refinance Mortgage can do for you, you can better equip yourself towards getting the best available mortgage.

Greg Shuey is a utah mortgage broker with Utah Financial. Together with Chase Gunderson, we specialize in FHA home loans and FHA Streamline loans. We are here to educate and help you along the way when researching and obtaining a Utah FHA Streamline loan.