Top 10 Ways to Avoid Loan Fraud
Every year, misinformed homebuyers, often first-time purchasers or seniors, become victims of predatory lending or loan fraud. Below you’ll find the top ten ways to avoid becoming a victim yourself.
1. Take your time and shop around. You should be able to compare prices and houses. If a lender or broker tells you they are your only chance to get a loan or owning a home, don’t do business with them.
2. Do not sign a sales contract or loan documents that are blank or that contain information which is not true.
3. Be certain that the costs and loan terms at closing are what you originally agreed to.
4. Do not be talked into lying about lie about your income, expenses, or cash available for downpayments in order to get a loan.
5. Watch out for higher-risk loans such as balloon loans, interest only payments, and steep pre-payment penalties.
6. Be careful about disclosing things like your need of cash due to medical, unemployment or debt problems. You are very vulnerable in these cases.
7. Don’t strip your home’s equity by refinancing again and again when there is no benefit to you.
Mortgage Loan Most Bankers Wont Give May Be Exactly What You Need to Buy or Refinance Your Home
A few years ago, a loan officer who worked for me was having a problem helping a customer. He was new to the business and had very little patience for problems (as you might have already guessed, he didn’t last very long). He told me the customer was a doctor, who had left a hospital job to open his own practice. He was trying to refinance a $300,000 home, but he could not show any current income. After the loan officer and I discussed the options, he walked away from the loan, completely frustrated. So, I asked him if I could work on it. He agreed, saying he didn’t wanted to be bothered with it any longer. So, I did what all good mortgage professionals do, and I picked up the telephone and began calling lenders and telling them the problems with the customer.
Navigating The Internet Sales Tax Laws
QUESTION:
I have been contacted by my local city government to say that my business is scheduled to be audited to determine if I owe any sales tax from items purchased on the Internet. Can they really make me pay this tax? I thought you could buy things online tax free? — Katie R.
ANSWER:
I hate to burst your internet bubble, Katie, but they are within their rights to audit your business and demand payment of sales tax on items purchased on the Web.
Internet sales taxation has been a topic of contention even before Amazon sold its first book and Priceline booked its first flight.
One of the more controversial points is that no one, including our own government, seems to have a clue how to implement a fair and logical Internet taxation process.
With over 7,500 different local, county and state taxation systems in the United States, you can understand the controversy. In 1998, Congress did what it usually does when faced with a potentially explosive issue like Internet tax collection — it decided to put off making a decision. Congress enacted a three-year moratorium on the collection of taxes to give an appointed advisory board time to come up with an acceptable solution.
Learn The Five Key Debt Reduction Steps You Must Take Immediately!
Step 1. The purpose of this first step is to bring you back to reality. You must know exactly how much money you owe and to whom you owe it.
* Collect all of you unpaid bills and any other evidence of your outstanding debts.
* List each outstanding bill on the same sheet of paper. In separate columns, include the invoice or account number, amount due, name of the creditor, and the date the bill can be paid in full without incurring additional finance charges.
* Total the amount due column.
* Total the number of creditors.
* Total the number of bills.
Are you surprised or shocked? Of course, most will be shocked by the scope of their debt. Regardless of your reaction, you now (perhaps for the first time) have an exact accounting of your current debts. Debt help Considers this to be your guide, because it shows exactly how much money you currently owe, and by what date you must pay.
Step 2. This step employs a powerful visualization technique that actually enables you to visualize an end to your current debts.
Grocery Savings - Your Kitchen is a Goldmine!
Your food budget is the most flexible area of your household budget. Grocery savings will free up a significant amount of money if you need to balance the budget, or fund your savings accounts.
If you haven’t figured it out already, your kitchen is a Goldmine. There are numerous ways to reduce the grocery budget and free up funds to use in other areas.
How much should you be spending on groceries?
The USDA Food Plans at the Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion suggests that a family of four is currently spending about $100 to $116 per week based on the “Thrifty Plan”, depending on the age of children. Anyone trying to reduce the food budget should follow the guidelines for the “thrifty plan.”
This should give you at least some idea what the average family spends. I recommend you shoot for something less than that figure if at all possible by implementing as many of these grocery saving tips as possible!
Justify Social Security … Dont Save for Retirement
It is a common question when investors review their retirement plan-should we include social security benefits into our retirement income projections?
It seems the closer an investor is to retirement, the more likely he/she will include social security benefits into the analysis. Younger investors, however, may feel compelled to omit such benefits. They must then become mavericks on the retirement front. The choice is yours, but before you decide the influence of social security on your future, remember the following points:
When Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the social security act in 1935, he stated that social security gives some protection to American families. One reoccurring theme of his statement focused on assistance, not 100% protection. In the President’s words, "the law will flatten out the peaks and valleys of deflation and of inflation (source: http://www.ssa.gov)
For many, the Social Security Administration has raised the age of full retirement from 65 to adopt a more stringent schedule. This may be an addition of a couple of months or a couple of years. The administration justifies the increases due to longer life expectancies and general healthier life styles.
How To Start A Second SEPERATE Credit File!
Your personal credit file is separated from those with the same or similar names by several factors, including a driver’s license number, birth date, or spouse’s name. Although these are three important identifying marks, the number one identifying mark on your credit report is your social security number. Since there is no one else in the United States with your number, your file is easily identified. The chances are very small that the social security office in your area will issue a second number just because somewhere down the road you messed up your credit. However, it is impossible that a second personal file would be created.
The second kind of credit file is the business credit file. Business credit files are identified by the business name and by a computer generated and assigned identification number. Your business file is listed with credit bureaus like Dun and Bradstreet and Stanley and Porous, etc. A Company credit record can be built and used just like a personal one. The idea is to take a hobby or trade that you possess, and start a new small business for which you can create a name and a new credit file. There are hundreds of small businesses that can be run from your home. These small businesses have the potential to generate high part-time or full time earnings. I suggest visiting your nearest bookstore or library to obtain a book on the numerous business opportunities available.
A Mortgage and Bank Trick You Should Avoid at All Costs
Once you’ve purchased your home, you will begin to get correspondence from your lender about a "Mortgage Reduction Program," in which you can cut years off your mortgage, without adding money to your payment. This is another trick bankers have to get you to give them your payment sooner, so they can hold it in escrow and make more money off of you.
The program arranges for you to make your mortgage payment bi-weekly. In other words, you cut your monthly payment in half and make it every two weeks. Basically, all the bank is doing is collecting an extra mortgage payment, over the course of a year and adding it to your principal loan amount. This cuts five to seven years off your 30-year mortgage term. Here’s the secret they don’t want you to know.
8 Point Checklist: Evaluating Online Vendors
Here are 8 things to consider, when evaluating lenders online:
1. Website Design:
The webpage is, in fact, the storefront of the internet. In the real world, your first impressions make all the difference. Well, it’s no different on the internet.
Examine the website design, and trust your first impressions.
2. Privacy Policy:
You will likely be sharing some personal information, in exchange for loan offers. You shouldn’t be so concerned about this that it limits your ability to reach out to possible lenders. However, use your common sense.
How I Became a Hard Money Lender
Unlike other investors, my venture into real estate was a natural extension of my secondary business as the IP Ware software developer. However, opportunity and perseverance beget wealth, or at least a decent side income.
Aside from my ventures into lease optioning residential property, I and my partner have managed to acquire a number of properties with our own credit. However, when looking at our finances and the return we were getting for the amount of effort involved, we both decided there must be a better way. That is when it occurred to me. Instead of trying to leverage our existing assets for a diminishing return, perhaps we could be the bank.
Here is the scenario as it has played out. First of all, we control a decent number of properties with our own credit. Most were purchased with 100% financing using multiple capital sources. However, each contains only a primary lean and is financed using standard mortgage terms. Subsequently, there is a 20% secondary credit position available on each of these properties.
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