It has been quiet confusing scenario these days when you go for a mortgage loan. Lenders give you a variety of options regarding your mortgage loan and you are not very sure where to start and what to choose. Mortgage loans also vary from State to State. Different States have their own rules for the mortgage loan applied. In this article I have discussed the 3 types of mortgage loans that are generally offered by most lenders in America today.
Fixed Mortgage Loan
These type of loans are the most common and popular type of mortgage loans. In this you take a loan from a lender and pay him a certain repayment over a fixed time period. People generally go for long term of 30 year fixed mortgage loans as the monthly repayment are low enough and also the interest rates events out in this long period. But the disadvantage is that, in the long run of 30 years you have to make more repayment than the others who take it for a short period.
Convertible Loans
Convertible loans have become popular as it gives the mortgage loan borrower more flexibility over their loans. At any time if it seems to you that the interest rates are high then you can get converted into fixed mortgage loan. If interests are low then you can get converted to ARM based mortgage loans. The most common example of convertible loan is Balloon Loan. It is basically a fixed rate convertible loan where you repay small monthly amounts over a period of 5 – 7 years. After this period you need to repay the loan amount in one go. The advantage is for the real estate investors who want to sell the house in a short period of time to make money.
Special Mortgage Loans
These mortgage loans are categorized according to different groups of people, such as FHA mortgage loans are to those who go for first time home buying or for people with bad credit history. Another is veteran affairs mortgage loan which are offered to widows of the US armed forces.
How Does a Reverse Mortgage Work?
If you want to go for reverse mortgage, then you should better understand what is reverse mortgage and how does a reverse mortgage works. A reverse mortgage is conventional mortgage loans. Here you need not to make monthly mortgage payments; rather you can get payment on monthly basis or get one time large amount as a reverse mortgage.
A reverse mortgage is available for people above 62 years of age in States and this kind of mortgage products are also available in other countries in different names. This is called reverse mortgage as this is just the reverse to the conventional mortgage loans in the sense that instead of paying monthly mortgage payments you are getting monthly payments in reverse mortgage.
The basic requirements for reverse mortgage are as follows…
- The person must be more than 62 years of age.
- The person should be the primary owner of the property.
- The mortgage should be paid off or have good amount of equity.
- All the co-owners should apply for the reverse mortgage and the owners should be eligible for the reverse mortgage.
You are not expected to pay off the reverse mortgage as long as you use the property as your primary residence but as soon as you move to any other house the mortgage will immediately will be due. The reverse mortgage will be payable upon the death all the co-owners. Say for if the husband and wife both the co-owner of the property then upon the death of the husband, the wife needs not to make pay it off. So reverse mortgage is certainly a very good source of tax-free monthly income for elderly people.
While it is definitely important to watch the market closely, you don’t want to be stuck with a higher interest rate on your home loan just because you waited too long. If you have been looking to buy or refinance your home, now is definitely a good time to do so as mortgage rates are approaching all time lows.
Last week the national average for the 30 year fixed dropped to 4.89%, while the average for the 15 year fixed rate fell to about 4.32%. This makes for a total of three weeks since the 30 year fixed-rate has dipped below 5% and the lowest rate ever recorded for the 15 year rate. Additionally, FHA, Jumbo, and reverse mortgage rates have dipped recently, though not to the same degree as the 30 and 15 year fixed.
With the upcoming expiration of the first-time home buyer tax credit program and the predicted increase in rates and inflation as the economy recovers, don’t expect rates to stay below 5.0% for much longer. We are very likely to see some volatility in rates during the rest of October as investors wait to see what direction the 10 year treasury yield will. The Fed is planning to stop buying back US Treasuries at the end of this month so there will likely be an increase in treasury yields which would subsequently increase mortgage rates.
So if you have been thinking about either refinancing or buying a new home, you might want to consider doing in sooner rather than later