How To Qualify For A Home Mortgage Loan

by: Jeff Slokum

Are you considering applying for a mortgage loan to purchase your first home? If so, you should read the following tips below that will make the process easier!

If You Have a Good Credit History It Is Easier To Qualify For a Mortgage

By far the easiest way to qualify for a home mortgage loan is by establishing a good credit history. To establish a good credit history you need to be able to demonstrate responsible repayment of smaller loans, such as credit cards and car loans. The building of your credit history begins the day that you put the very first debt into your own name. For many Americans, this is at the age of eighteen.

Have a good solid credit history, shows the home mortgage lender that you take financial responsibility seriously. This makes you, what the lender terms, a low risk borrower. That is to say that you as a borrowers are a relatively low risk in comparison to other borrowers.

In return for your good credit history, the lender will approve your home mortgage loan application. In addition, he will offer you a lower interest rate on the loan than would be offered to other borrowers who are classified as high risk.

However, if your credit history is not as strong as you would like, that doesn’t mean that you will have to give up on getting a home mortgage loan. There are other things that you can do to increase your chances for mortgage approval.

Save a Sizeable Down Payment

Having a substantial down payment on the home that you wish to purchase and applying for a smaller home mortgage loan is another way to increase your chances of getting mortgage approval. Again, this goes back to the risk involved to the lender for financing your loan.

Many mortgage lenders will require that you have a 20% down payment on the home, and then they will grant mortgage loan approval for the remaining 80% of the purchase cost. This helps to offset the lender risk. In the event that you are unable to keep up with monthly mortgage payments and you default on the loan, the lender will have a better chance of recovering his money through foreclosing on and selling the home if the loan is a smaller percentage of the market value of the home.

Therefore, if you can save 30% or more towards a down payment on your home, you will be lowering the risk to the lender and increasing your chances of getting mortgage approval.

You May Have To Accept a Higher Interest Rate on Your Mortgage Loan

If you wish to secure a mortgage despite your bad credit history, and you do not have a sizeable down payment saved up, you may have to agree to a mortgage at a higher interest rate than that which is being offered to low risk borrowers. This is because the lender will want to be compensated for his increased risk level.

This should not necessarily prevent you from taking the loan, though. If you secure the mortgage and are diligent about making timely payments, after paying on it for awhile you will improve your credit history. Then you can refinance the mortgage at a later date with a better rate offer.

About The Author


Jeff Slokum

This article provided courtesy of http://www.2nd-mortgage-guide.com

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Home Mortgage Loans

by: Matthew Bourne

Getting rid of the mortgage early is something that many home owners in the UK aspire to achieve. Being free of the principal financial debt in most people's lives at the earliest stage possible offers financial security and peace of mind for later on in life. Paying off the mortgage early is no pipe dream though. In 2003, the average age of outright home ownership was 56, by 2004 the average age had fallen dramatically to just 48!

How home owners pay off their mortgages early

The secret to paying your mortgage off early lies in choosing the right type of home loan, and this is where flexible mortgage loans and offset mortgage loans step in.

Flexible mortgage loans, as their name suggests, offer flexible mortgage repayment terms where overpayment of mortgage is allowed by the home owner without incurring a penalty. Some flexible mortgage loans allow overpayment of a limited amount, such as 10% of the mortgage value, while other flexible home mortgage loans cater for unlimited overpayment by the home owner.

The advantage of flexible home mortgage loans is that as well as allowing you to overpay, you can also underpay, so taking a 'payment holiday' if finances become a little thin. Underpayment is of course subject to the terms of the mortgage, and will normally only be allowed if it amounts to less than the funds that have been overpaid.

Overpayment via flexible home mortgage loans means that you get to reduce your mortgage capital as well as pay off interest accrued on the capital each month. For each successive month that you make an overpayment the amount of interest paid on the overall mortgage is therefore reduced. An overpayment of just £65 on an £80,000 mortgage with the interest rate at 6.0%, will see mortgage loans paid off 5 years early, amounting to a total saving of some £15,000.

Offset home mortgage loans

Offset home mortgage loans were unveiled to the home owner in 1998, and have gained a great deal of respect from home owners since that time. Offset mortgage loans help to pay off a mortgage early by using what is known as a 'sweeper' system. Providing that the home owner has their current and/or savings account with the mortgage loans provider, their available balance is 'swept' across to their mortgage account each day to offset/reduce the amount of mortgage capital subjected to interest.

To illustrate the advantages of offset mortgage loans, take a mortgage of £100,000 and a balance of £10,000 in your current account and/or savings account. Instead of the interest rate being applied to the £100,000 every day or every month, the interest rate would be applied to your mortgage balance less the balance in your current account / savings account. This means that interest would only be applied to £90,000 of your mortgage, effectively making 10% of your mortgage interest-free!


About The Author

Matthew Bourne has been working in the loans, mortgage and life insurance industry for over 10yrs and is currently working for http://www.loansgalaxy.com/secured-loans/uk/home/