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Mortgage Brokers Do The Work So You Don’t Have To

My career in the mortgage industry has provided me with many opportunities to work with both mortgage brokers and banks. I believe mortgage brokers are great tools for consumers in search of the best financing options available. A mortgage broker differs from a bank representative in some important ways. The broker can shop and find the best deal for a homebuyer or refinancing deal. The bank only sells its own products. The mortgage broker takes one application and one credit report and utilizes all of the resources to find the best rate and mortgage program available. In my role as the mortgage broker I am an expert working hard specifically for the consumer.

Mortgage Brokers Can Show You All The Possibilities

As a mortgage broker I may work with up to one hundred lenders all over the country. The consumer never knows about many of these companies because mortgage brokers have exclusive access to them. When a bank turns down a mortgage application for any reason, the bank is finished with that potential customer. A mortgage broker is not through — he or she moves forward to find the next best lender. If a customer does the mortgage research alone mortgage companies want to pull a credit report before giving any details about products and programs you qualify for. All of these credit inquiries may lower your credit score and when it is time to qualify for the mortgage this is critical. My goal with every customer I work with is to find the best rate. This money all comes from essentially the same places: investors on Wall Street. Customers with good credit will be quoted a similar rate from a bank.

Tap Into Broker Knowledge And Thrive Under Special Circumstances

Consumers dealing with more credit challenges may find they have more choices with a mortgage broker. A lack of a down payment, a short time in business or the inability to prove all of your income may be a problem and a skilled mortgage broker will be able to find a solution. I can find specialty programs many lenders don’t have or don’t know about. Mortgage brokers shop around the country and they have the knowledge and expertise to get someone with unique circumstances approved.

How Does the Mortgage Broker Get Paid?

In the mortgage industry brokers are an integral part of the equation to get the best value for your money. I am the middleman between the customer and the lender. Mortgage lenders compensate mortgage brokers for completing a large portion of the work. When a mortgage broker markets and originates the loan lenders only have to deal with basic negotiations that involve an educated party (the broker), the approval process, and execution of the loan. The cost for banks and mortgage companies do not differ.

Compare a Mortgage Broker to a Buyer’s Agent

A mortgage broker is like a buyer’s agent for your mortgage.

A buyer’s agent represents the home shopper’s best interest. The agent is an educated real estate professional dedicated to representing only the purchaser. With this representation the homebuyer can save money and have better deals negotiated.

As a mortgage broker, I negotiate the term of a loan with only my customer’s individual needs and desires in mind. As a consumer it can be difficult to find advisors and representatives completely committed to your best interests. A mortgage broker is the key to uncovering all the possibilities and securing the best mortgage rates you can find. Be sure to choose wisely and you can reach your highest home investment potential.

Wealth. Does that sound like a foreign word to you? If you’re saddled with loads of consumer debt the way so many Americans are, it is probably a very unfamiliar word. Commercial and consumer debts are the greatest barriers to wealth. And when you’re suffocated by thousands of dollars of debt, it may seem impossible to get out.

There’s good news! It’s not impossible to eliminate your debt and move toward wealth. Most people and small businesses simply don’t have a system for paying off their debt, and as a result they perpetuate bad habits and remain stuck in it. By using the proper debt management system, you can get out of debt quicker than you probably imagined with minimal change to your existing lifestyle.

To top it off, there is a system you can use that will allow you to simultaneously create and feed the Wealth Cycle, a cycle of wealth millionaires use to consistently and exponentially build their wealth. In other words, you can simultaneously become wealthy and repay your debt.

Skeptical? You bet. But, you’ll be surprised at how easy this is.

So what’s the best way to abolish consumer debt? Many financial advisors will tell you to scrimp, save and cut back on absolutely everything that makes life fun. They’ll tell you to create a very tight budget and then pay off your debt before you can even think about making investments of any type.

Sounds a lot like a diet, one that will cause you to starve yourself and your children, depriving them of wealth.

So what does work?

To tackle consumer debt, Loral’s five-step debt strategy includes the following steps (explained in considerable detail in her book, The Millionaire Maker):

1. Create a debt elimination box
2. Calculate a factoring number
3. Make a priority payoff box
4. Use a “jump start allocation”
5. Make your debt payments

By using this system, your debt payments start to build as you pay of your creditors, all of whom have been listed in order of priority. Your capacity to pay off your debt accelerates quicker and it does require you to shave down unnecessary expenses, but not cut out everything you love. In short, it’s realistic - and mighty effective. You simply have to commit to it.

But wait, there’s more to it!

Earlier I mentioned that you can pay off your debt and at the same time actively build your wealth. Remember that Wealth Cycle mentioned earlier? This is where it comes in.

The Wealth Cycle used by millionaires consists of 12 steps:

1. Gap Analysis
2. Financial Baseline
3. Freedom Day
4. Debt Management
5. Entities
6. Cash Machine
7. Wealth Account
8. Forecasting
9. Assets
10. Leadership
11. Teamwork
12. Conditioning

It’s okay if you don’t know what each step means right now. The main thing to understand is that the key to success in using the Wealth Cycle is knowing which steps to take, and in what order.

Everyone’s financial situation will require its own order of sequencing. A wealth mentor can help you determine what’s right for you. For some people, the first step is to develop the proper legal entities for their business and investments so as to maximize tax strategies. For others it may mean first reallocating assets so you can bring in increased monthly income that enables you to start investing. This will in turn bring in passive income which will allow you to pay off your debt quicker.

Here’s an example of when entity structuring might be used first:

Let’s say you have a graphic design business but it’s not incorporated. This means your debt includes a lot of expenses - cell phone, office supplies, postage, etc - that you paid for out of your personal account. If you make your design business an entity, let’s say a “Subchapter S Corporation”, then the portion of your debt that includes those items can now be transferred over as business expenses. Now you can write off that portion of your debt against your income, giving you
more money at the end of the year!

The interesting thing about the Wealth Cycle is, as stated above, that you only focus on debt management after you develop a Cash Machine, the proper Entities, and engage in
forecasting.

Building wealth from a position of great debt takes courage, discipline, and positive energy. I realize this may seem a difficult scenario from which to create wealth, but my hundreds of successful clients prove that getting out of debt and building wealth is very doable. What it takes is a commitment to gaining awareness of your psychology, your finances, and a willingness to let go of old habits that no longer serve you.

Loral Langemeier is the author of The Millionaire Maker. For more information on uncommon wealth buidling strategies visit http://www.liveoutloud.com.

The need to monitor and document temperature and humidity has
created a huge market for chart recorders, and data loggers. One
segment of this market is the portable data logger. This useful
tool is being deployed in the transportation industry and
building engineering in ever increasing numbers. They are
battery powered, waterproof, and rugged. One manufacture
describes them as, “small, paperless, lightweight,
battery-powered, electronic monitoring devices used for data
acquisition.” They can be programmed to collect temperature
samples every few minutes, and at a later date downloaded into a
computer where the data appears as a chart for archiving or
printing.

The portable data logger is a relative recent innovation made
possible by the computer industry that has driven the
miniaturization of computer chips and other components. The
portable data logger can be made as small as a couple of inches
in width and length so that they can be placed in a basket of
strawberries to monitor the temperature changes while in
transit. Tracking the temperature changes in merchandise being
transported by trucks has until recent years been impossible.
Some fleets were equipped with chart recorders but the results
were not satisfactory.

Advances in battery technology have also contributed to the
improvements in the portable data logger. Data loggers that can
operate in the field for up to five years without a battery
change are now available which makes long term monitoring of
remote locations possible.

Increasing government regulations requiring the documentation of
temperature and humidity for safety and quality assurance
purposes, are driving more and more industries to use chart
recorders and data loggers. Expect to see the portable data
logger employed in increasing numbers as the price comes down
and new uses are found for this very useful tool.

While cash advance credit cards allow you to use part of your credit line to withdraw cash, there are a number of fees and fine print issues that must be considered before proceeding with a cash advance. Getting a cash advance from your credit card is easier than ever. However, one must be aware of the expenses associated with taking a cash advance before inserting their credit card into an ATM. While there are a limited amounted of credit cards that offer 0% cash advances for 1 year, most charge much higher interest rates on cash advances than they do on regular purchases.

First off, there is a 99% chance of being charged a cash advance fee. Of the over 70 credit cards covered on Credit Card Depot, I could not find a single card that charged less than a 2.9% cash advance fee. Some cards even impose a $10 minimum fee. That means the cash advance fee can be 5-10% if you are only taking $100 or $200. Taking out less than $300, therefore, can be expensive.

Now, unless you take advantage of a 0% interest cash advance offer, you will also be charged a higher interest rate on the money you take out. For example, a very popular credit card with a variable 11.24% interest rate on purchases charges 23.49% on cash advances. This is not the exception, but the rule. Regardless of your credit, you will likely be charged 23% or higher on your cash advance balance.

There’s another sticky issue here. When you repay your credit card, your dollars go first to the balance that is being charged the lowest interest rate. For example, let’s say you have a $2000 balance from purchases at 11.24% and a $1000 balance from cash advances at 23.49%. Until you have paid off the $2000 from purchases, you will continue to pay the higher interest rate on your cash advance. This is an unfortunate trap many cash advance users fall into.

Now, there are ways to limit the expense of taking a cash advance from your credit card. First, you can find offers that will give you a 0% interest rate for 1 year. At the end of that year, you can pay the cash advance balance in full or, if your credit is good enough, transfer that balance to a 0% balance transfer credit card. However, if you do not repay the cash advance, you will get hit with an interest rate in the mid to high 20% range. Also, you may be charged a balance transfer fee.

If you have a balance on your current credit card, it is probably better to get a new credit card for your cash advance to avoid the messy interest rate situation having purchases and cash advances on the same card creates. Also, if you cannot repay the cash advance in a short period of time, you could transfer the balance to your current credit card and pay a much lower interest rate on your cash advance.

Taking a cash advance from your credit card does cost money. However, the wise use of a cash advance can limit the astronomical expense taking a cash advance often entails. By taking interest rates, cash advance fees, and the fact that paying off a cash advance on a credit card with a balance is not that easy into consideration, one can effectively use a cash advance credit card without falling prey to the traps in your credit card’s fine print.

©2006, Credit Card Depot Inc. This article may be reprinted as long as a live link to http://www.credit-card-depot.com remains intact.

The author is President and CEO of Credit Card Depot Inc, an online credit card comparison site, featuring over 70 current credit card offers, including 0% cash advance credit cards. At Credit Card Depot, you can compare credit card applications and apply online for instant
credit card approval.

The idea of a balance transfer deal was introduced to the UK in the year 2000 by innovative online bank Egg plc, who offered customers a bait of 0% interest for six months on balances they transferred from another credit card.

The feature was an instant hit, and more and more card issuers began to offer similar deals as competition for customers grew more intense. Before long, it seemed that every card available had 0% deals of ever-increasing lengths.

It didn’t take long for savvy cardholders to spot a pretty major flaw in the credit industry’s thinking though. With so many cards offering 0% deals, what’s to stop people from becoming serial balance transferers, moving their debt to a new card as the 0% period expires? And so the game of credit card surfing began.

People began to systematically switch their balances to card after card, and if they were organised enough to make sure their balance was moved off a card before the interest charges kicked in, then they could avoid paying interest on their debt for as long as there were new cards available to apply for. In effect, the credit card industry was collectively extending millions of pounds of interest free credit over an indefinite period - not a situation they either intended or appreciated.

People could take advantages of balance transfers in other ways, too. Some cards allowed a transfer to a bank account rather than another credit card. It was therefore possible to transfer the entire credit limit of a new card to a high interest savings account, leave it there for the length of the 0% deal period, and then clear the card balance and pocket the interest earnings.

All this added up to a major headache for credit card issuers - the tables had been turned, and their customers were now costing millions of pounds every month to support. This had to change, and so it fell to Egg plc to again introduce a new card feature : the balance transfer fee.

In May 2005, Egg announced that all balance transfers would now attract a ‘handling fee’ of 2% of the amount transferred. The charge would be capped at £50. Other card issuers quickly followed suit, and now most balance transfer deals have such a charge.

So what does this mean for credit card users?

Firstly, before applying for a new balance transfer card, check in the small print whether or not a fee will be imposed. This should be made clear in all advertisements and on the application form, but the credit card industry has a history of subtly hiding unattractive features while accentuating the eye-catching ones, so pay careful attention.

If there is a fee, make sure that there’s an upper limit mentioned. While the maximum £50 fee may still, depending on the size of your balance, make it worthwhile to take advantage of the offer, cards with no maximum charge are much less attractive.

To sum up, the balance transfer game isn’t as straightforward as it once was. There are still ways to save money by taking the maximum advantage of the offers available, but cardholders need to be more wary than before.

Michael Strauss is an expert writer on consumer credit issues, and is a contributing author for Card Sense UK, where you can read more about balance transfer credit cards and cards without transfer fees.