Monday, December 15, 2008

Considering 30 or 15 Year Fixed Mortgage Rates

The monthly repayments for 30 year or 15 year fixed mortgage rates are just one important consideration for many people who are looking to buy a home. Buying a home later in life means that many people want to have the mortgage paid off early. Of course, there are many things to consider before agreeing to anything. Home buyers looking into this need to be assured their monthly payments will not increase.

It is always wise to avoid agreements that do not appear to have any negative aspects because they invariably have but are hidden. For loans that have 15 year fixed mortgage rates, the same amount of interest is maintained throughout the life of the loan. This is always a good thing for those people that do not like surprises. My wife and I looked into the loans available with 15 year fixed mortgage rates when we were searching for a home for sale.

Having a realistic, sustainable monthly payment on our mortgage was important even though we wanted to pay off our debt as soon as possible. Considering longer term fixed rate mortgages was one option if we could not afford a 15 year plan. Still, having a mortgage close to retirement was not what we were looking for, so we decided to try for a loan with a 15 year fixed mortgage. Too much pressure was placed on the early repayment of the mortgage loan.

After careful consideration we decided to take the longer term 30 year repayment option instead of the 15 year plan. There were many things that factored into this decision. The most important point was the fact I discovered my wife was having a baby. As she intended to raise our child at home we could not rely on her financial income to the monthly expenditure. Our monthly payment would have been too high if we had committed ourselves to the 15 year fixed mortgage plan. All things considered, we just did not want to bite off more than we could chew. The monthly payments on a 30 year loan were quite a bit lower.

If we have spare cash throughout the year then we can use it to reduce the capital sum. Those few extra payments also help reduce the number of years you have to pay the loan over. This may be difficult but well worth the effort in the a few years down the line. Our first choice would have been to go for the short term 15 year fixed rate mortgage solution but this did not help with our more immediate situation. In retrospect, everything worked out ok for us by going down this road.

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Saturday, December 6, 2008

The Function Of A Mortgage

If you were to be asked to describe and give a definition for the word mortgage, would you be able to, because it is surprising how few people know what they really are. Some people have gotten into the habit of calling them mortgage home loans but that isn't right at all as they are not loans at all. The mortgage is basically a way of securing a debt to which the property is the security with the mortgagor as the person who will owe money to the mortgagor. More accurately, it is a document that protects your lender's interest with your property itself and a legal agreement you have provided to a lender.

The facility that a mortgage creates means individuals and companies can acquire land or property without needing the full face value to purchase it at the time. Although this article is brief, below are points that will help more in the understanding of how this system operates.

The mortgagor who is also referred to as the Borrower (leading to the false impression that it is a loan) and the mortgagee, who is also called the Lender (again, falsely leading you to think that a loan has been agreed). The security the mortgagee uses is called a lien which is a legal term that stays in force until all monies are repaid.

The mortgagee's money is then protected by this knowing the property is in fact security against its own debt. Records of this are normally kept in the public records section of the county courthouse or a similar establishment. This is now a recorded legal agreement and cannot be reversed until the full balance of the debt is cleared.


While the property is owned now by the mortgagor, the lien cannot be reversed until the amount specified in the debt is paid off. While the mortgagee has legal possession of the property, he does not own it or have the title to it, the legal owner is the mortgagor.

The only time the mortgagee has any rights over your property is in the event that you default on payments when he can sell it to recover the outstanding debt. This process has many names and in the United States it is referred to as foreclosure but this does need to go through the courts.

This is a legally recognized process that must take place often referred to as 'judicial foreclosure'. Obviously there is much more to the subject than this, but these are the basic foundations upon which the mortgaging system has been constructed.

 

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