Home Equity Line of Credit – Great for Remodeling ProjectsWritten by Charles Essmeier
Many homeowners are lucky enough to find a house that represents exactly what they want in a home. They buy it, make payments on it, and live more or less happily ever after. Others are not so fortunate. Some buyers who live in a pricey market may have to settle for less house than they need, hoping to find a solution to their lack of space later. A third group of buyers may find that their housing needs change over time, as their family size increases. What can be done in these situations?
A common solution to these problems is to add on to house, often accomplished by converting a garage to a room, adding a room over garage, or simply adding a room somewhere else on property. For these projects, a home equity loan is a great source of financing. The home itself is used as collateral for loan, and addition actually increases value of house. As most of these projects involve a fixed cost, payments can be structured at a fixed interest rate over a specific period of time. But what about do-it-yourself project? What if problem with home isn’t a lack of space, but a lack of taste on part of previous owners? Is there a better financing choice in these situations?
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| | Home Equity – Foreclosure Often Not Necessary in Current MarketWritten by Charles Essmeier
While driving around your community, you may have seen signs posted on telephone poles that offer “foreclosure help.” These seemingly generous offers to help financially troubled homeowners who are in danger of losing their homes to foreclosure are actually scams. Typically, “help” comes in form of an offer to buy home for a reduced price from homeowner. The scammer offers to pay off homeowner’s existing debt and to rent home back to homeowner until they can afford to buy home back. The scam comes after owner signs paperwork and offer to rent home to them abruptly disappears, leaving scammer with an inexpensive house and homeowner without a house or a place to live. Fortunately, current booming real estate market has made it possible for financially troubled homeowners to avoid foreclosure on their home and scammers.
Foreclosure usually occurs after a homeowner fails to make his or her mortgage payments for a period of several consecutive months. Lenders are often willing to accommodate minor financial troubles from their borrowers, but sometimes, they have no choice but to evict homeowner and sell home. This is usually done at a public auction, as lenders place more importance on getting money back quickly than in getting highest price property can yield. While national foreclosure rate has been fairly steady, it has been increasing in several states, notably Texas and Florida.
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