FINANCIAL FREEDOM

Top 5 Reasons People Get Reverse Mortgages

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Ethan Ewing: Ethan Ewing is currently President of Freedom Financial Network and http://www.Bills.com. If you would like more of Ethan’s http://www.Bills.com/sitemap/, please visit the Bills.com information on http://www.Bills.com/mortgage/

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7 Great Money Tips To Lead You To Financial Freedom

Regardless of where we are in life we can all learn something about money and how to better prepare for our future. Especially when we see that the national average is $10,000 in credit card debt and that savings and preparedness is dropping. This article can put you back on track to a more fulfilling and financially free life.

1) Automate your investing. Experience has proven that if we have to make a conscious effort every time we need to invest we will start with good intentions and then miserably fail a few months later. If you can automate your savings, whether by using your employers 401k, a sep (self employment plan), or direct deductions from your account you will finish ahead. The rule here is if you don't see it, you won't realize it and you won't miss it. Some of these deductions will reduce your taxable income and save you further on taxes (see your CPA and tax advisor for more info on this). A good rule of thumb is to set aside 10% of your income.

2) Real estate. If you haven't already, buy a house. Renting will only make your landlord (hint - house owner) rich. Regardless of what the immediate market does real estate is one of the best long term investments you can make. It also has many advantages including deductions for mortgage interest. Real estate will always go up. People will always need a roof over their head. Just watch HGTV, real estate has made many millionaires and is a key factor in almost every tape and book series on gaining wealth. Stick with the standard 30 year fixed mortgage.

3) Medical and life insurance. You need to have them, if you think you don't just ask anyone that didn't have it when something unexpected happened. If you love your family, they are a must. But, on that note, don't get taken. Buy term life. 20 years will give good term coverage and if you follow all of these tips you won't need anything beyond that. Whole life only makes your agent rich and really never builds any value for the huge costs involved. Term life can be purchased cheap over the internet at great savings. For medical insurance, in most states Blue Cross and Blue Shield offer great plans that are a fraction of Cobra or employer plans. If you have an adequate employer plan, by all means use it. Stick with big names like Blue Cross as they will be around for years.

4) Don't ever buy new cars. It is a fact that new cars lose 25-30% of their value the moment you drive it off the lot. Let someone else pay for that depreciation and get a two or three year old car or truck. With the latest technological advances cars can easily go 150,000 miles and above. A two or three year old vehicle with 30,000 miles on it will save you not only in initial cost, but also on your insurance, and taxes. Also do your homework before buying your car. Get your credit score and see what loans you qualify for. This can easily be done right off the internet and will save you big at your local dealer (never take a dealers word for your credit and rate - they will hold 1-3 points on rate and that can mean thousands in extra interest over the term of the loan).

5) Get out of debt. I put the investment tips above this as you need to pay yourself first. If you are overwhelmed with debt, their are numerous non-for-profit agencies that will renegotiate your debt and terms on your behalf. Work out a plan to get the high interest debt paid off. Be wiser with your purchases - do you really need that 60 inch flat screen tv? a BMW you cannot afford? etc... Cut up all cards but 1 (for emergencies you should have 1 credit card) and no store cards. The whole purpose behiind store cards is to entice you to buy more and pay more. My grandfather said it best - "if you can't afford it, don't buy it." The only good loan to have is a mortgage.

6) Never burn bridges. If you happen to leave your current employ, leave on good terms. Find a replacement if time permits. This will put you in a good light with your former management and can result in a good reference, another job, a callback for more money, etc... Never leave on bad terms. Its just not good Kharma. Also, it won't hurt to take former business associates and customers to lunch regularly. This will keep you in tune to the industry, give you many additional contacts afford you future favors - just think of the lobbyists on Capital Hill, you don't think they spend all that money on their politicians for nothing do you? Don't be afraid to ask for a favor every once in a while. Kharma is the big rule here -when you help others you will inadvertently help yourself.

7) Give back. Once you've made it it is only fair that you help others less fortunate than yourself. Regardless of your beliefs when you donate time and money to help others you will inadvertently help yourself. You will feel great. Also, the cardinal rule of kharma is that when you give you will get many more times what you give back. Take the time to help by volunteering your time. Even if it is 1 hour a week, you will help improve someone else's life. Volunteer, it will make you a better person.

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Home Based Business Ideas- Fools Gold Or Financial Freedom?

Despite the hype, statistics show that the overwhelming majority of home based businesses fail, so the familiar phrase, “If I can do it, anyone can do it”, can’t be very accurate. Why the high failure rates? The single most important factor seems to be that people don’t fully understand what it takes to be successful: effective sales and marketing skills.

Before I started my home based business opportunity review site, I was an Inside Sales Executive for Carleton Sheets Real Estate. I made a nice living selling people real estate coaching packages over the phone. But in order to be successful, I literally had to pound the phone for 8 hours a day, face almost constant rejection, all in an effort to find that one guy out of a hundred that would become a sale. I don’t believe this a skill set many people have (perseverance, determination, and sales skills), and I believe similar skills are necessary to being your own boss. If you accept this theory, than the picture starts to come into focus on the high failure rates.

Another problem is that we live in an era of instant gratification. If people don't make $10,000 in their first month with a work at home business, many quit and go on to the next big thing. Of course, it's not entirely their fault, as they probably responded to a headline that read: "I Made $50,000 in 5 weeks- click here to do the same". With so much fools gold out there, it's difficult for even the savvy consumer to spot the fake from the real thing. So what’s the solution? Well there is no "magic bullet", but there are legitimate home based businesses out there that come close.

Having reviewed countless home based business ideas over that last few years, I've developed a pretty good eye for what's hype and what are truly legitimate home based businesses. I discovered one home based internet business that claims to have eliminated the high failure rates. It’s called the Prosperity Automated System (PAS). They claim that with their turn-key business system, you do no selling, no advertising, and no speaking with prospects; as the company does it all for you.

The Prosperity Automated System, was just selected to be featured on the Discovery Channel in a segment on “Innovative Home-Based Business Solutions” as part of the Models of Excellence series (this news event confirms my initial review on its legitimacy). This segment will air nationally on the Discovery Channel and regionally in conjunction with CNN Headline News.

The company provides free access to their private website, a video, and a free report simply by signing up for their FREE Info Package.

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Commercial Equity Line Of Credit

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Equity Line Of Credit provides detailed information on Equity Line Of Credit, Home Equity Line Of Credit, Commercial Equity Line Of Credit, Best Home Equity Line Of Credit and more. Equity Line Of Credit is affliated with Financial Freedom Resources.

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Personal loan, the most preferred solution for financial freedom!

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content developer for finance sites

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Financial Freedom: In Rough Economic Waters

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Financial Conditioning for Financial Freedom

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Mortgages

A mortgage is a method of using property as security for the payment of a debt.

The term mortgage (from Law French, lit. dead pledge) refers to the legal device used in securing the property, but it is also commonly used to refer to the debt secured by the mortgage.

In most jurisdictions mortgages are strongly associated with loans secured on real estate rather than other property (such as ships) and in some cases only land may be mortgaged. Arranging a mortgage is seen as the standard method by which individuals or businesses can purchase residential or commercial real estate without the need to pay the full value immediately.

In many countries it is normal for home purchase to be funded by a mortgage. In countries where the demand for home ownership is highest, strong domestic markets have developed, notably in Great Britain, Spain and the United States.

Participants and variant terminology
Each legal system tends to share certain concepts but vary in the terminology and jargon they use.

In general terms the main participants in a mortgage are:

Creditor
The creditor has legal rights to the debt secured by the mortgage and often make a loan to the debtor of the purchase money for the property. Typically, creditors are banks, insurers or other financial institutions who make loans available for the purpose of real estate purchase.

A creditor is sometimes referred to as the mortgagee or lender.

Debtor
The debtor or debtors must meet the requirements of the mortgage conditions (and often the loan conditions) imposed by the creditor in order to avoid the creditor enacting provisions of the mortgage to recover the debt. Typically the debtors will be the individual home-owners, landlords or businesses who are purchasing their property by way of a loan.

A debtor is sometimes referred to as the mortgagor, borrower, or obligor
Other participants
Due to the complicated legal exchange, or conveyance, of the property, one or both of the main participants are likely to require legal representation. The terminology varies with legal jurisdiction; see lawyer, solicitor and conveyancer.

Because of the complex nature of many markets the debtor may approach a mortgage broker or financial adviser to help them source an appropriate creditor typically by finding the most competitive loan.

The debt is sometimes referred to as the hypothecation, which may make use of the services of a hypothecary to assist in the hypothecation.

Mortgage by demise
In a mortgage by demise, the creditor becomes the owner of the mortgaged property until the loan is repaid in full (known as "redemption"). This kind of mortgage takes the form of a conveyance of the property to the creditor, with a condition that the property will be returned on redemption.

This is an older form of legal mortgage and is less common than a mortgage by legal charge. It is no longer available in the UK, by virtue of the Land Registration Act 2002.

Mortgage by legal charge
In a mortgage by legal charge, the debtor remains the legal owner of the property, but the creditor gains sufficient rights over it to enable them to enforce their security, such as a right to take possession of the property or sell it.

To protect the lender, a mortgage by legal charge is usually recorded in a public register. Since mortgage debt is often the largest debt owed by the debtor, banks and other mortgage lenders run title searches of the real property to make certain that there are no mortgages already registered on the debtor's property which might have higher priority. Tax liens, in some cases, will come ahead of mortgages. For this reason, if a borrower has delinquent property taxes, the bank will often pay them to prevent the lienholder from foreclosing and wiping out the mortgage.

This type of mortgage is common in U.S. and, since 1925, it has been the usual form of mortgage in England and Wales (it is now the only form - see above).

In Scotland, the mortgage by legal charge is also known as standard security.

History
At common law, a mortgage was a conveyance of land that on its face was absolute and conveyed a fee simple estate, but which was in fact conditional, and would be of no effect if certain conditions were not met --- usually, but not necessarily, the repayment of a debt to the original landowner. Hence the word "mortgage," Law French for "dead pledge;" that is, it was absolute in form, and unlike a "live gage", was not conditionally dependent on its repayment solely from raising and selling crops or livestock, or of simply giving the fruits of crops and livestock coming from the land that was mortgaged. The mortgage debt remained in effect whether or not the land could successfully produce enough income to repay the debt. In theory, a mortgage required no further steps to be taken by the creditor, such as acceptance of crops and livestock, for repayment.

The difficulty with this arrangement was that the lender was absolute owner of the property and could sell it, or refuse to reconvey it to the borrower, who was in a weak position. Increasingly the courts of equity began to protect the borrower's interests, so that a borrower came to have an absolute right to insist on reconveyance on redemption. This right of the borrower is known as the "equity of redemption".

This arrangement, whereby the mortgagee (the lender) was on theory the absolute owner, but in practice had few of the practical rights of ownership, was seen in many jurisdictions as being awkwardly artificial. By statute the common law position was altered so that the mortgagor would retain ownership, but the mortgagee's rights, such as foreclosure, the power of sale and the right to take possession would be protected.

In the United States, those states that have reformed the nature of mortgages in this way are known as lien states. A similar effect was achieved in England and Wales by the Law of Property Act 1925, which abolished mortgages by the conveyance of a fee simple.

In the United States, mortgages became widely used starting in 1934. In that year, the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) lowered the down payment requirements by offering 80% loan-to-value loans. Next, banks, insurance companies, and other lenders followed the example. The FHA also lengthened loan terms by first introducing 15-year loans to supplant 3, 5, and 7-years loans which ended with a balloon payment. Until the 1930s only 40% of U.S. households owned homes; the rate today is nearly 70%. In 2003, total U.S. residential mortgage production reached a record level of $3.8 trillion through record low interest rates (though these continue to vary according to credit rating.)

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Mortgage Equity Withdrawal - The Refinancing Trend

Mortgage Equity Withdrawal is the formal name for equity refinance, reverse mortgages or simply home loans based on equity (as the security for the loan).



Mortgage Equity Withdrawal rose to 8.7 billion pounds in the second quarter of this year to its highest since the third quarter last year, official data showed (on Tuesday 4th Oct 2005).



Mortgage Equity Withdrawal is a measure of the equity Britons have extracted from their homes but which they have not re-invested in property.



Sharply rising house prices in the last few years have encouraged a trend where Britons refinance their mortgages to extract cash which many economists say has helped support spending.



The Bank of England said that Mortgage Equity Withdrawal was up sharply from 6.437 billion in the first quarter of this year although it is still well below the 14.5 billion seen one year ago, when house prices were rising more than 20 percent annually.



The Bank of England has since cut interest rates by a quarter of 1% to 4.5 percent which could support Mortgage Equity Withdrawal in coming months, particularly as there are signs that the property market may be stabilizing after a year of stagnation.



As a percentage of post-tax income, Mortgage Equity Withdrawal rose to 4.2 percent from 3.2 percent in the first quarter of the year but is well down on 7.3 percent seen a year ago.



" Mortgage Equity Withdrawal appears to have found its way into increased holdings of financial assets (equities, bonds) as much as extra spending," said Geoffrey Dicks, UK economist at RBS Financial Markets.



"Generally the pick-up in Mortgage Equity Withdrawal is probably indicative of more `normalization' of the housing market but while it is saved rather than spent, the policy implications are not huge."



Official data last month (September) showed the saving ratio rose to 5 percent in the second quarter of this year from 4.5 percent in Q1 (also of this year).



Separate figures showed UK residential construction barely grew in September, putting in its weakest monthly performance since May.



But what does this mean in real terms?

There are several key points in this statement, these are:



1.People are refinancing their homes because of increased value

2.People are not necessarily spending the money on the property

3.People are not necessarily spending the money in the high street



These three points are important to all of us, not just the policy makers. Here’s why.



Let’s consider the first point, people are refinancing there homes because the equity has grown rapidly.

This statement tells us that the housing market although not sky rocketing as it was a couple of years ago, is none the less still rising.



The second point tells us that when people effectively withdraw this money it is not to improve the home itself, hence the equity of the property will not grow at a better rate than market rate.



The third point is perhaps most telling, people are not taking the money and spending it in a hap hazard manner but are potentially saving it (bonds, shares, bank accounts).

So what do this mean for us?



Well, it’s a bit of mixed signals heads up if you like.

The general population (property owners) are slipping into ever increasing levels of debt (if you’re refinancing your mortgage or ‘freeing up equity’ as the agents put it, you are effectively borrowing money) – unless it’s a reverse mortgage.



People who are refinancing are not improving the quality of the property with the money and so if the market takes a fall their property will devalue as much as the next property (whereas if they’d returned some of the capital into improvements they would at least be sitting on a lesser slump in value).



Finally, and perhaps the most damming sign is that people are saving more, this is not a good sign. In a healthy economy the rate of saving is low, this is primarily because confidence is high (people aren’t worried about the bills or their jobs) but the fact that more people are now starting to save money rather then spending it means that the retail sector will be taking a hit, this means that the bottom end jobs will be in danger, this in turn has a knock on effect in the service sector and becomes a vicious circle – the end result being market stagnentation .



But what this trend does illustrate quite simply is that you can potentially get more money back in savings interest than you pay out in refinancing interest – so at the moment the smart moneys in equity refinance.

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Finding the Best Student Loan Consolidation

Many people need to take out student loans in order to further their education, with the promise of repayment within a certain time frame after getting your degree. This puts a financial burden on graduates who are just starting out in life, and just beginning their careers. Student loan consolidation is now available, to help meet take command of that debt. The following paragraphs will describe what this is, and provide advice on seeking additional information on the subject. When you consolidate you are generally given a longer period of time to repay than you were given with the unconsolidated debt. The time period can be up to 30 years. This means that your payment will often be lower than the total payments you would be making without consolidation. You will often have to pay more interest, though, because the length of the loan is longer. But the interest rate is generally a fixed rate, meaning it will never change throughout the entire duration of you loan. This is a huge advantage, because most are carry a variable fixed rate that can change at any given time. Many resources are available to help you find more information regarding the subject including: · many financial aid offices of learning institutions · many lending institutions · via the world wide web When searching for more information it could also prove to be very helpful to contact the Department of Education (DOE). The DOE commonly offers numerous helpful resources on the subject. If you have any questions regarding student loan consolidation, the DEO can most often help you obtain the answers you need. EASI, or Easy Access For Students and Institutions, is another place you can seek answers to your questions. Their website is located at www.rit.edu/~easi can be very helpful in finding the answers you need about repayment of your debt, even if you do not qualify for student loan consolidation due to default on your original loans. Consolidation has many clear benefits, but before you obligate yourself by signing your name on the dotted line, you should do your research and obtain all the information you can find. In doing so, you will enable yourself to find the best solution available. Know Your Credit Score If your credit score is good, you should not have any problems getting a great rate. If your rating is over 660, you will automatically qualify for the best rates, and you do not have to research any more. But if your rating is under 600, you may want to evaluate ways to raise it before seeking student loan consolidation. Your score is a main factor in determining the type of interest rate you may receive from the lender. If you have good credit, they can believe you will pay back the loan without default. Thus, they will often offer you a lower interest rate. But if your credit is not good, they will give you a higher interest rate to help insure they will receive repayment. If it is very poor, you may not even qualify for student loan consolidation. There are several ways to obtain a copy of your credit report including: · online requests · written requests · by requesting in person Knowing your credit score is the first step in gaining student loan consolidation information. Knowledge is power. The more knowledge you have on the subject, the better chance you will have at obtaining the best rates from lenders. Knowing your score can also help you to rid your credit report of reports that should not be there, as well as aid in the prevention of identity theft. Obtaining Information From the Internet With the world wide web gaining in popularity and growing, it is a wonderful tool in helping obtain the best interest rates. Educating yourself on the subject has never been easier. By utilizing any search engine, you can generate vast amounts of information with just a few clicks of the mouse. There are many tools available online, to assist you in finding the best interest rates available. These tools include: · free credit check links · student loan consolidation calculators · interest rate estimators Knowledge is the key in finding the best rates available. The more knowledge you have on the subject, as well as knowing your credit scores, the better your chances of getting a good interest rate.

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