With the first-time homebuyer tax credit being extended and expanded to include move-up buyers, prospective home purchasers now have an unprecedented opportunity right now. There has never been another time in our nation in which...
* Home prices are down significantly in most areas of the country over the past three to four years. Plus the glut of foreclosures makes for a particularly excellent buying opportunity.
* Rates are at historic lows. Never before could purchaser purchase homes at such affordable rates as we have seen in the past 12 months.
* The government is literally subsidizing the purchase with a credit up to $6,500 for move-up buyers and up to $8,000 for first-time buyers. This is a dollar-for-dollar tax credit in addition to the deduction of interest and taxes paid.
Put these facts together and this means housing is the most affordable it has been in a generation. Despite frigid temperatures in many parts of the nation, Realtors around the nation are gearing up for an early Spring.
Are you prepared?
People with great credit scores have earned them for a reason - they have always borrowed money, and paid it back on time. There's really no trick to what they've done, and there is no one action that will help you get a great credit score. When someone asks me how to earn a good credit score, I tell them to look at the spending habits of those with great scores, and to develop the same habits. Here are the 7 habits of people with great credit scores.
1. Never Pay Cash
People with great credit scores want every purchase to count. And a purchase doesn't count unless the 3 bureaus know about it! The only way to make sure that the bureaus know how much money you're spending is to put everything on your card(s). Rather than deposit your paycheck and spend, think of your spending as a monetary cycle: Put your paycheck in the bank, spend with your credit cards, and pay off the cards with the funds you've already deposited. It's one extra step that pays off big with the added security and boost to your score that credit cards provide. Credit cards aren't just for larger purchases anymore. Using your credit cards for items like soft drinks and gum has become so common that credit card companies have given a name to them: "Micro-purchases."
2. Never Use a Debit Card
You won't find a debit card in the wallets of people with great credit scores. Debit cards provide you absolutely nothing that a credit card won't, and credit cards will build your credit score! Furthermore, if someone steals your credit card, you're protected against fraudulent purchases, while with a debit card, you're out of luck! People with great credit scores take every opportunity to build their credit - going to the grocery store, buying gas, or renting movies!
3. Pay Off Your Balance(s)
People with great credit scores don't typically carry high credit card balances. The easiest way to emulate this is to make sure that you don't carry ANY balances. You'll obtain the best credit score if you make sure that you're using the smallest portion of your potential limit - which means "Zero." People with great credit scores make sure to use their cards, but pay the balance off every month.
4. Put Yourself on a Bill Payment Schedule
In order for the credit bureaus to reward your good spending habits, you have to pay your bills on time. However, you have a little leeway. While it's not a good idea to pay your bills a few days late because your creditors will charge you late penalties, it won't affect your credit score negatively unless you pay them more than 30 days late. The easiest way to stay on top of your bills is to pick one day out of the month to take care of everything.
5. Consistently Request Higher Credit Card Limits
Because people with great credit scores habitually borrow money and immediately pay it off, the credit card companies are very comfortable consistently raising their spending limits. People with great credit scores consistently request higher limits because it allows them the freedom to borrow and keep a balance, if the need arises, without lowering their scores. You will have the best credit score if you keep the balances of your cards below roughly 35% of the spending limit of each card. People with great credit scores don't habitually spend over 35% of the limit of their cards. Furthermore, if you have high limits, you can take advantage of the promotional offers that the banks offer from time to time. A borrower I know with a great score recently transferred the second mortgage on his home to a 1.99% APR promotional rate on his credit card - the rate is good for the life of the loan!
6. Never Close a Credit Card Account
The credit bureaus take into account the age of your credit lines - and people with great credit scores know this, and exploit it. Many times, people with mediocre or low scores will pay off a card they've abused and close the account because they subconsciously think it was the card's fault they let the balance get as high as it did. This is NOT the correct thing to do in this situation. That card has a great history behind it! You've shown the bureaus that you're willing to borrow a large sum of money and then pay it down to zero. People with great credit scores NEVER close credit card accounts because they want to show that they have a long history of properly using credit.
7. Never Rent
Your home is probably the largest purchase you will ever make in your life, and is the one purchase that can make the biggest impact on your credit score. When you purchase a home, you're showing the bureaus that you can consistently budget yourself to pay a large portion of your income towards an account on a monthly basis. There are a number of reasons people with great credit scores refuse to rent, and the impact of paying a mortgage on their scores is one of them. When a first time homebuyer finally closes on their home and pays the mortgage on time for a few months, they will see their credit score jump around 50 points - and sometimes higher!
People with great credit scores haven't achieved anything too terribly difficult - they've merely adopted some fantastic spending habits. If you would like to earn a great credit score, borrow these habits and watch your score climb. Along with your score, your financial health should benefit, as well!
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The good news: mortgage rates are down. The bad news: it's much harder to qualify for a refinanced loan these days.
What's more, the borrowers who need to refinance the most - because their adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs) are resetting to higher interest rates - are among those having the most trouble winning approvals.
"I'm turning away about 60% to 75% of the clients who come to me for a refi," said Bob Moulton, president of Americana Mortgage Group on Long Island, N.Y. "Some don't have enough equity and others have bad credit scores."
During the boom years, lenders approved most anyone with a pulse. Not so today. Mortgage brokers recognize this and are now being very selective about the clients whose applications they choose to submit to the likes of Wells Fargo (WFC, Fortune 500) or Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500).
If an applicant has poor credit, or a home whose value is rapidly deteriorating, they're just not going to bother.
"If the person is Sweet Polly Purebread - good income, good assets, high credit score - there's money out there," said Moulton. "But if not, then it's harder."
Interest rates are way down - 5.67% is the going rate for a a 30-year fixed loan this week, according to Freddie Mac. That has generated a spike in refinancing applications.
Total mortgage applications were up 73% last week from a year earlier, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), and 69%of those applications were for refis. Last February, when interest rates were about 6.3%, about 46% of applications were for refis.
The make-or-break metric for anyone looking to refinance right now is home equity - the difference between what is owed on a house and what the house is worth. But with home prices down, many homeowners have little of that precious commodity left.
"If you have an 80% loan, with a 10% home equity loan, you may not be able to refinance," said Peter Grabel, a mortgage broker in Connecticut - especially in down markets.
Consider a homeowner who bought in Miami a year ago with 20% down. Home prices have fallen 15% there in the past year, wiping out three-quarters of the equity. Lenders, who want collateral that's worth more than the value of the loan, are wary about having so little cushion. If they have to repossess and resell the house, they're on the hook for a big loss.
"No lender would take that deal," said Marc Savitt, president of the National Association of Mortgage Brokers. "It's a lot different from two years ago."
The bar has also been raised for credit scores when it comes to refinancing, according to Grabel. And sometimes, it's not a matter of whether someone can get refinancing but at what price.
"Those with high credit scores are getting very good rates, but the lenders have heightened the requirements to qualify," said Grabel. Instead of a score of 680 for the best rate, a borrower might need 700 now.
For example, Grabel has a client who wants a cash-out deal. The client has lots of equity in his house but a dismal credit score - 552.
"I used to have 20 lenders I could send him to; now there's maybe one," said Grabel. "The rate, though, will be high, higher than what he's paying now."
The only reason that this client will take that deal is because he's going through a divorce and needs to buy his wife out of their home. He doesn't have time to rebuild his credit rating, but he's lucky that at least his house appraises well.
Indeed, appraisals are another tool that lenders are using to eliminate unqualified applicants.
"It used to be a formality," said Grabel. "Now it's, 'Lets do the appraisal first and see what value comes in." Lenders are scrutinizing them to a degree unheard of during the boom. They don't want to lend $160,000 on an appraised value of $200,000 unless they're sure the house is truly worth that.
Ted Grose, a past president of the California Association of Mortgage Brokers, said lenders now often conduct what he called "bench reviews" of appraisals. "They have an experienced, independent third-party go over the appraisal to make sure the numbers are accurate," he said.
Grose called many of the applicants he sees "very challenging, mostly because of high loan-to-value ratios."
Many of these people took exotic loans to get into high-priced properties. They used hybrid ARMs that are resetting to higher rates, or interest only loans.
Particularly deadly are option ARMs, which act as negative amortization loans; the payments don't even cover the interest and the balance grows over time. Combine that with falling home prices, and the loan balance may be more than the home's market value.
Under those circumstances, said Grose, few borrowers can be helped.
There is one bit of good news for homeowners this week: The stimulus bill passed by Congress late Thursday will raise the size of the loans that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac can buy from $417,000 to nearly $730,000 in some high-cost markets.
Lenders are much more willing to make loans that can be sold to these two entities in the secondary market, which will make it easier for some people to refinance. Additionally, these so-called 'conforming' loans have interest rates a percentage point or more lower than 'jumbo' loans.
"That's going to be huge," said Grose, especially for his clientele in high cost Los Angeles.
But even for those who'll benefit from the new legislation, refinancing will never be as easy as it used to be.
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