Mortgage Loans After Bankruptcy – Ways To Boost Your Fico

May 31st, 2010 - 
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Mortgage Loans After Bankruptcy – Ways To Boost Your Fico Score

After a bankruptcy is discharged, many lenders will offer you a home loan. In most cases, these lenders do not require new lines of credit or a high credit rating. Buying a home with good or fair credit has its advantages. These individuals likely obtain better mortgage rates and qualify for a range of home loans. Here are a few tips on ways to raise your credit score before applying for a mortgage.

Pay Creditors on Time

The habit you adopt for paying creditors can have a negative or positive effect on your credit report. If bills are regularly paid on time, your score will soar. Yet, paying a bill one day late may decrease your credit score by as much as 10 points.

If possible, pay bills a couple of days before the due date. Waiting until the due date to pay credit card bills will not have a negative effect on your score however, you may gain a few extra points with early payments.

Maintain Low Credit Card Balances

Following a bankruptcy, it is essential to open a new line of credit. This can be in the form of a credit card, gas card, retail store card, etc. If applying for a new credit card, avoid high balances. Ideally, consumers should keep credit cards at approximately 25% of the limit. Keeping a large balance will lower your credit score.

Stay Away from Credit Inquiries

Although credit inquiries are inevitable, especially when trying to re-establish credit, avoid applying for too many credit accounts. Many consumers are unaware of the damaging effects of inquiries. However, one inquiry can lower your credit score by 10 to 12 points. Because credit scores are already low following a bankruptcy, it is very important to keep inquiries to a minimum.

Carefully Monitor Credit Report

When attempting to boost your credit score, regular credit report monitoring is important. Homebuyers hoping to get approved for a prime rate mortgage will need a credit score of at least 680. After a bankruptcy, it will take time to achieve a high credit rating. However, if you take immediate steps to boost your score, it may be possible to get approved for a low rate mortgage within 24 months.

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Mortgages

Mortgage Loan Options Going Exotic

May 24th, 2010 - 
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In the past, a person had limited options when borrowing money for a home purchase. These days, there are exotic mortgage loan options that satisfy just about every borrowing need.

Creative Mortgages

Getting a loan for a home purchase can be very stressful. What if you dont qualify? How humiliated will you be? These days, theres no reason to worry. The mortgage lending market has a solution for just about everyone.

1. Do the Two Step. The Two-Step Mortgage is a mixed interest rate loan. Essentially, the loan provides a lower fixed interest rate for a period of 5 years or so and then adjusts to a new rate at the end of the period. The new rate is dependent upon the interest rates being charged at the time of the change. This loan can be helpful for borrowers who are squeezing into a loan since the initial period tends to have a lower interest rate than a straight fixed interest loan.

2. Graduated Payments Graduated Payment Mortgages are loans that, well, have a graduated payment schedule. Depending on the specific lender, the first five to seven years of mortgage payments will be 10 to 20 percent lower than a fixed rate mortgage. After the prescribed time, the payments will actually be higher than a fixed rate loan. The advantage of this loan is two fold. First, it lets you borrow more money than a fixed loan because you can qualify for the lower initial payments. Second, the loan is optimal if you are expecting to sell the house within the initial five-year period after significant appreciation.

3. Sharing Appreciation Shared Appreciation Mortgages are typically provided by private investors and even family members. In essence, you borrow money to purchase a home by agreeing to share a percentage of future appreciation in the home with the lender. Private lenders can want as much as fifty percent of the appreciation, but they will significantly lower the interest rate on the loans. SAMs should really only be used if you have horrible credit and no other options.

There three loan options are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to mortgages. If you need to get creative, find a reputable mortgage broker in your area and see what they can come up with for you.

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Mortgages

Mortgage Leads, The Hotter the Better

May 17th, 2010 - 
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If you are a loan officer or mortgage broker and you are considering purchasing leads, or you are disgusted with the leads you are currently receiving, you may want to consider looking into real time leads.

Real time leads are something to consider because they are hot leads. Meaning you will receive the lead within seconds of your prospect submitting their on-line form.

Another thing to know about real time leads is that you know that when you receive your lead, you know it will be of good quality.

Many lead companies sell recycled leads, or what is better known in the industry as junk leads.

Recycled leads move from one lead company to the other, being purchased at a discount, and than being sold to loan officers at a profit.

By the time a lead of this type ends up on a loan officers desk, it has already been passed through the hands of at least a dozen other loan officers.

The chances of closing a loan on a lead like this are slim to none.

When considering a lead company that deals with real time leads, be sure to do your research. Call the mortgage lead company and speak with someone in customer service.

Find out how hey obtain their leads. If they are not obtaining the leads from web sites they own and operate on their own, than most likely they are obtaining them from third party vendors. In this case, it would be in your best interest to move onto the next lead company.

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Mortgages

Mortgage Leads, Overcoming Objections

May 10th, 2010 - 
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If you are a loan officer or mortgage broker, and you are obtaining leads from a mortgage lead provider, it is important that you get the best return on your investment that you possibly can.

For starters, understand that a lead provider does just that, they provide you with leads. It is entirely up to you to make the sale.

When you call potential customers, it is not unlikely to be confronted with objections, regardless of where your leads are coming from.

Here are a few tips for overcoming some of these objections.

If you call a customer and they say that they are no longer interested, it is most likely because they lost their nerve.

Purchasing or refinancing a home is a very big financial deal, so it is understandable if your customer gets cold feet.

Say something to this effect in the nicest voice you have . . .

Oh, Im very sorry to hear that, after looking at the on-line form you filled out, I was able to fit you into one of our programs that I am sure you would be interested in.

If a customer tells you that they are working with someone else. They either really are, or again, they have lost their nerve.

Say something to this effect . . .

Im really sorry to hear that. We offer some really nice products and I only wanted to take a minute of your time to go over some of our programs.

Although these approaches will get the customer talking the majority of the time, there are the times when it does not work.

Here are a few other things you can do . . .

Most lead providers supply you with an e-mail address, so e-mail them with some attractive products and tell them briefly about the benefits of working with you and your company.

Also, you can mail them out some flyers with some products that you believe would meet their mortgage needs along with some of your business cards.

Whatever happens on your sales call, do not give up after one objection. If you have not been having success with your leads, than you need to change your approach.

Remember. The lead provider cant do the selling for you. Best of luck with your leads.

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Mortgages

Mortgage lead generation

May 3rd, 2010 - 
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If you are a loan officer or a mortgage broker looking for a good lead source, one of the first things you will want to do when considering a mortgage lead company is find out how they go about generating their leads.

How a mortgage lead company generates their leads is very important because it has a lot to do with the quality of the leads you will be receiving.

If a lead company is buying their leads from another source, than what they are doing is recycling leads. And who knows how many times that third party company has sold the leads to other companies.

Your chances of closing a loan on a lead that has gone through the hands of fifteen other loan officers before it reached your desk are slim to none. So steer clear of recycled leads.

Some lead companies have one data base with thousands of leads that they continue to sell over and over again. They will sell them cheap, but most times you are required to buy in bulk. These leads are usually six months to a year old and sometimes more. This is also known as recycling. An even better way to describe this is selling junk.

Look for the lead companies that obtain their leads from web sites that they own and operate them selves. These types of companies receive fresh leads on a daily basis and will sell them in real time. So, by the time you receive the lead, it is only a few seconds old.

The best way for you to determine where a mortgage lead company generates their leads is to call and speak with someone in customer service.

Ask them the direct question, how do you obtain your leads? If you are not satisfied with the answer they give you, than chances are, you will not be happy with the leads they send you.

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Mortgages