Settle Your Affairs with a Will

Settle Your Affairs with a Will

The saying says the only sure things in life are death and taxes.  We are diligent each year preparing all the documents we need for our taxes, but do we have all the necessary paperwork for when we die?  All our important papers need to be together so our heirs will not have to slog through file after file, or pile after pile, to determine what life insurance coverage we have.

Create a specific file containing all your important documents.  Better yet, to protect them, put them in a fire-proof safe or a safety deposit box.  Which papers should that file contain?  There are basics that everyone should have together to ease the burden on your heirs.

First, be sure your heirs are aware of where the papers are and how to access them.  Include in with the papers a letter of instruction with contact names and numbers for your attorney and any financial advisors or accountants.  You can also include instructions for your funeral if you haven’t preplanned that.

Of course, an original will should be kept on file.  If you have no will, you have no control over how your assets are handled and distributed.  The state will decide how your assets will be divvied up among your family.

Consumers Looking to be Debt Free

Consumers Looking to be Debt Free

AsAmerica’s debt crisis looms, some people are finding ways to not only save money, but to become debt free.  Part of the plan reducing spending, but to actually pay off debt requires planning.

Debt Free

An obvious way to pay down debt is to increase the amount you pay on the bills.  Many credit card companies offer a payment calculator to show how long it will take to pay off the debt and how much interest you will save.  A mortgage calculator will allow you to do the same thing.   When you pay extra on your mortgage or on a car payment, be sure to specify that the extra is to go on principal.  The more you pay on principal, the less you will pay in interest.  Also, you may want to check to be sure there are no prepayment penalties on your loans.

Interest Rates

Depending on your interest rates, it may make sense to take out a home equity loan to pay off your credit cards.  Usually, the interest rates will be lower on a home equity line of credit.  But, once you do that, put the credit cards away!  If you choose that route, take the money you save on the credit card payments and apply that to the home equity loan.

To pay off a mortgage sooner, try refinancing it for a shorter term.  The payments will be higher, but they may not be as high as you think.  Here’s where playing with a mortgage calculator is fun.  If you have a $150,000 mortgage at a rate of 8%, your payment on principal and interest is $1,101.  If you were to refinance at a rate of 5% for 15 years, your payment would be $1,186.  If you’re not sure you could consistently make those higher payments, don’t refinance, but make payments as if you had.

Loans Made Easy

Loans made easy

If you are in the market for a new home or are looking to refinance your current home let loan.me do the hard work for you. While the housing market is not improving any time soon, the low interest rates that are being offered by many lenders should be taken advantage of. If you are looking to buy a new home, or even your first home, there is no better time than the present. Houses are selling below their market value, making it possible for you to get even more home for your money than you may be able to afford otherwise. Let our mortgage calculators help you figure out just how much you can afford and give you an idea of what your mortgage payments will be like.

Mortgage Loan Woes

Mortgage Loan Woes

It’s a bad time for home sellers and mortgage lenders. The current state of the market is bad and only getting worse. Potential homebuyers are getting all kinds of conflicting advice but the most predominant is the advice to stay out of the market and stick to apartment or home renting. This is causing an even more terrible lag on the market and mortgage lenders are backing out of lending programs and some like Wells Fargo are just completely dropping loan banking products like reverse mortgages.

The wait and see mentality that most potential homebuyers have fallen into is going to continue to cause problems for the market. As lenders no longer see the market as profitable, they will begin to liquidate to cover losses and either offer home mortgage at higher rates or not at all.

Reverse Mortgage

The only way to get out of the slump is for mortgage lenders to re-establish credibility and value in the market. Homebuyers do stand to do well with so many houses on the market, but many feel that it would be an investment that would lose value immediately and may not be fruitful for even the next ten years.

One way that banks can avoid liquidating properties is to rent the houses through a rental property management branch.

Coronado First Bank Mortgage Loan Rates Hits Low

Mortgage Loan Rates Hits Low

Coronado First Bank has recently announced that their mortgage rates have reached an all-time low when it comes to refinancing. Coronado First Bank has done very well over the past few years when it comes to refinancing, and is very popular because of their low rates and is sure to increase even more thanks to their rates dropping even more.

Financing

One thing people tend to forget when buying a home or financing one is that there are closing costs that need paid. The best way to make sure you have the money to cover these is to save one percent of your interest rate towards these costs. This is usually more than enough to cover the cost and you may even have a little left over.