Are You Suffering from Payment Protection Overload?
Critical illness insurance:Critical illness insurance will cover you in the event of a serious illness such as cancer, coronary artery by-pass surgery, heart attack, kidney failure, major organ transplant, multiple sclerosis and stroke. Additional conditions covered by this insurance can include ... more...

Mortgage Loans
A mortgage is a device used to create a lien on real estate by contract. The mortgage is an instrument that the borrower (called the mortgagor) uses to pledge real property to the lender (called the mortgagee) as security for a debt, also called hypothecation. The mortgage, as a rule, consists of ... more...

Mortgage Loan Closing Costs
Closing costs for home refinancing or purchases are often misunderstood and frustrating for the buyer and seller (who is probably very soon going to be a buyer). Closing costs are assessed once a purchase agreement is finalized with the seller and/or their agent. The various costs will vary by ... more...

How Much Mortgage Can You Afford?
Mortgage calculators are helpful when comparing mortgage loan offers. You can specify the total loan amount, term length, interest rate, property taxes, homeowner insurance and private mortgage insurance amount to determine how much your month payment will be. Term length is the duration of the ... more...

RESPA: The Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act
The Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) is a consumer protection statute, first passed in 1974. One of its purposes is to help consumers become better shoppers for settlement services. Another purpose is to eliminate kickbacks and referral fees that increase unnecessarily the costs of ... more...

Home Equity Let the Market Eliminate Your Private Mortgage Insurance
In decades past, most people who were interested in obtaining a home loan were required to put down at least 20% of the purchase price. Those days are gone, and as home prices have risen faster than incomes, the average down payment required by lenders has dropped. In fact, it is often possible ... more...

How Mortgages Work in the Primary and Secondary Market
There are many institutions that loan money to home buyers. Commercial banks, private lenders, credit unions, mortgage bank companies, insurance companies and pension funds. It can get confusing as things are always changing in the mortgage industry.Policies, interest rates, mortgage programs, ... more...

How to Buy a Home When Your in Your Twenties
A Singles Game of Real Estate (Getting started in your twenties)Due to the fact that most of us grow up in either a rented apartment or our parents single family home, it stands to reason that most people, when beginning to ask themselves the question of purchasing their own dwelling, will come to ... more...

A Singles Game of Real Estate
This discussion leans toward answering questions asked most often by our youthful men and women in there early twenties. They often begin to ask themselves the question, Should I consider buying a home, condo/town-home or some other type of real estate that I can call my own? Due to the fact that ... more...