When it comes to getting a mortgage loan, homebuyers have fewer options than they did even a couple of years ago. In the days of the real estate boom, lenders were much more willing to float exotic loans based on risky terms, but recently they have returned to safe and sensible home financing.
Fixed-interest mortgage
With a fixed-rate home loan, your interest rate remains the same for the life of the loan and the payment is split into equal monthly payments for the duration. In other words, it is amortized over the life of the loan.
The interest payments are front-loaded, however, so that during the first few years of the loan term, only a small portion of the payment pays off the principal. To see an example of an amortization schedule, plug in some hypothetical numbers in Bankrate's mortgage calculator.
Most commonly taken as a 30-year loan, fixed-rate mortgages can be shorter in duration or, more rarely, longer.
"Fixed-rate home loans can be 10 years, 15 years or 20, but most popular is the 30-year because that makes your payment the lowest," says Floyd Walters, owner of BWA Mortgage in La Canada Flintridge, Calif.
During the height of the real estate bubble, news broke about even longer loan terms, with some mortgages being offered for a long as 50 years. Those may have been more of an urban myth than reality, says Walters.
"To be honest, I never saw a real offering for a 50-year mortgage. I did see just a few lenders offering a 40-year mortgage," he says.
An extremely long mortgage term offers few advantages to consumers.
"On a fully amortized 30-year fixed-rate loan at 5.25 percent for $250,000, the payments would be $1,380 per month. Take that same loan out another 10 years to a 40-year note and the payments drop but only to $1,247 per month. You save $133 per month but it adds 10 years to your note with a net cost of an additional $100,000 or so," Walters says.
Adjustable-rate mortgage
Unlike a fixed-rate home loan, which sports a static interest rate over the life of the loan, the interest rate on an adjustable-rate mortgage, or ARM, changes every year.
ARMs come in various permutations. For instance, a hybrid ARM features aspects of both adjustable and fixed-rate mortgages.
"Hybrid mortgages can be anything from a three-year, five-year, seven-year or 10-year fixed interest rate period," says Mark Klein, president of Pacific Coast Lending in Agoura Hills, Calif. After the fixed-rate period, the loan is amortized over the balance of the term with a rate that adjusts annually.
Conversely a one-year ARM has no fixed-rate period. Though they are still available, they're not widely offered, says Walters.
"It's hard to believe there are very many people taking a one-year. I haven't done one for years and years. It's just not a product that feels right," he says.
One circumstance when they might be appropriate would be in a high fixed-rate environment.
"If I could take a one-year ARM that was 1 or 2 percentage points below what I could get as a fixed-rate mortgage, and if I could get some interest rate caps built in, I would analyze it. If we were in a high fixed-rate environment, it might appear more attractive," Walters says.
Unlike a plain-vanilla fixed-rate mortgage, ARMs come with more jargon than most people would care to know. But it's vital to understand the index on which the rates are based, the margin amount and any interest rate caps (provisions in the contract that limit rate increases).
Index -- An index is a published measure of the cost of money. Lenders price home loans based on the index to which the loan will be tied. There are several different indexes lenders use to calculate the rate on ARMs. Some commonly used indexes are the one-year Treasury Constant Maturity, the London Interbank Offered Rate, or Libor, or the 11th District Cost of Funds Index, or COFI.
After the initial fixed-interest period, the rate will adjust based on predetermined agreements in your note.
"The lender will say, 'We will fix your interest rate at 4 percent for the next five years. At the end of five years, we will go out and find the value of one-year Treasury bills and add a margin to that and we will fix your interest rate on the loan for a year at a time based on that (index and margin),'" says Walters.
Margin -- The margin is a set amount that will be added to the index to determine the interest rate.
Cap -- The interest rate will adjust regularly, but there is a limit to the amount it can change. Typically, there will be a cap on the initial interest rate reset that is higher than all of the subsequent rate adjustments, and a cap on the amount the rate can change over the life of the loan.
"On the first adjustment with a lot of lenders, there is a 5 percent cap on the first reset and then it goes to 2 percent a year every year, with a lifetime cap of 5 percent over the starting interest rate," says Walters.
Interest-only loan
For those buyers who need a rock-bottom payment for several years, the interest-only mortgage product, as its name implies, allows them the option of paying only the interest for the first few years of the loan.
"You can pay principal if you wish; interest-only is an option," says Walters.
Interest-only loans are structured like an adjustable-rate mortgage.
"The most common one is the five-year fixed 30-year loan," says Klein. "The payment and interest rate are fixed for five years and the payment could be based on only the interest payment, so you're not paying down the principal. When it resets your payments can go up pretty significantly, even if the interest rate doesn't change that much."
An interest-only loan may be appropriate for homebuyers who believe their income will increase in the coming years -- for instance, young families or a professional just starting out at the bottom of a potentially lucrative field such as law or medicine.
"Who they are not good for is someone who is stretching every dollar to get into a house and whose income is going to be relatively flat," says Walters.
No matter what kind of loan gets you into a home, do your homework beforehand and make sure there are no details about the mortgage loan you don't understand.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Tips on Buying a Home from CNN Money
1. Don't buy if you can't stay put.
If you can't commit to remaining in one place for at least a few years, then owning is probably not for you, at least not yet. With the transaction costs of buying and selling a home, you may end up losing money if you sell any sooner - even in a rising market. When prices are falling, it's an even worse proposition.
2. Start by shoring up your credit.
Since you most likely will need to get a mortgage to buy a house, you must make sure your credit history is as clean as possible. A few months before you start house hunting, get copies of your credit report. Make sure the facts are correct, and fix any problems you discover.
3. Aim for a home you can really afford.
The rule of thumb is that you can buy housing that runs about two-and-one-half times your annual salary. But you'll do better to use one of many calculators available online to get a better handle on how your income, debts, and expenses affect what you can afford.
4. If you can't put down the usual 20 percent, you may still qualify for a loan.
There are a variety of public and private lenders who, if you qualify, offer low-interest mortgages that require a down payment as small as 3 percent of the purchase price.
5. Buy in a district with good schools.
In most areas, this advice applies even if you don't have school-age children. Reason: When it comes time to sell, you'll learn that strong school districts are a top priority for many home buyers, thus helping to boost property values.
6. Get professional help.
Even though the Internet gives buyers unprecedented access to home listings, most new buyers (and many more experienced ones) are better off using a professional agent. Look for an exclusive buyer agent, if possible, who will have your interests at heart and can help you with strategies during the bidding process.
7. Choose carefully between points and rate.
When picking a mortgage, you usually have the option of paying additional points -- a portion of the interest that you pay at closing -- in exchange for a lower interest rate. If you stay in the house for a long time -- say three to five years or more -- it's usually a better deal to take the points. The lower interest rate will save you more in the long run.
8. Before house hunting, get pre-approved.
Getting pre-approved will you save yourself the grief of looking at houses you can't afford and put you in a better position to make a serious offer when you do find the right house. Not to be confused with pre-qualification, which is based on a cursory review of your finances, pre-approval from a lender is based on your actual income, debt and credit history.
9. Do your homework before bidding.
Your opening bid should be based on the sales trend of similar homes in the neighborhood. So before making it, consider sales of similar homes in the last three months. If homes have recently sold at 5 percent less than the asking price, you should make a bid that's about eight to 10 percent lower than what the seller is asking.
10. Hire a home inspector.
Sure, your lender will require a home appraisal anyway. But that's just the bank's way of determining whether the house is worth the price you've agreed to pay. Separately, you should hire your own home inspector, preferably an engineer with experience in doing home surveys in the area where you are buying. His or her job will be to point out potential problems that could require costly repairs down the road.
If you can't commit to remaining in one place for at least a few years, then owning is probably not for you, at least not yet. With the transaction costs of buying and selling a home, you may end up losing money if you sell any sooner - even in a rising market. When prices are falling, it's an even worse proposition.
2. Start by shoring up your credit.
Since you most likely will need to get a mortgage to buy a house, you must make sure your credit history is as clean as possible. A few months before you start house hunting, get copies of your credit report. Make sure the facts are correct, and fix any problems you discover.
3. Aim for a home you can really afford.
The rule of thumb is that you can buy housing that runs about two-and-one-half times your annual salary. But you'll do better to use one of many calculators available online to get a better handle on how your income, debts, and expenses affect what you can afford.
4. If you can't put down the usual 20 percent, you may still qualify for a loan.
There are a variety of public and private lenders who, if you qualify, offer low-interest mortgages that require a down payment as small as 3 percent of the purchase price.
5. Buy in a district with good schools.
In most areas, this advice applies even if you don't have school-age children. Reason: When it comes time to sell, you'll learn that strong school districts are a top priority for many home buyers, thus helping to boost property values.
6. Get professional help.
Even though the Internet gives buyers unprecedented access to home listings, most new buyers (and many more experienced ones) are better off using a professional agent. Look for an exclusive buyer agent, if possible, who will have your interests at heart and can help you with strategies during the bidding process.
7. Choose carefully between points and rate.
When picking a mortgage, you usually have the option of paying additional points -- a portion of the interest that you pay at closing -- in exchange for a lower interest rate. If you stay in the house for a long time -- say three to five years or more -- it's usually a better deal to take the points. The lower interest rate will save you more in the long run.
8. Before house hunting, get pre-approved.
Getting pre-approved will you save yourself the grief of looking at houses you can't afford and put you in a better position to make a serious offer when you do find the right house. Not to be confused with pre-qualification, which is based on a cursory review of your finances, pre-approval from a lender is based on your actual income, debt and credit history.
9. Do your homework before bidding.
Your opening bid should be based on the sales trend of similar homes in the neighborhood. So before making it, consider sales of similar homes in the last three months. If homes have recently sold at 5 percent less than the asking price, you should make a bid that's about eight to 10 percent lower than what the seller is asking.
10. Hire a home inspector.
Sure, your lender will require a home appraisal anyway. But that's just the bank's way of determining whether the house is worth the price you've agreed to pay. Separately, you should hire your own home inspector, preferably an engineer with experience in doing home surveys in the area where you are buying. His or her job will be to point out potential problems that could require costly repairs down the road.
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