Title Loans

Many homes require jumbo loans these days, learn about some of their characteristics now.

When most people want to buy their dream house, they usually need what is known as a jumbo mortgage. A mortgage is deemed jumbo when it exceeds a certain dollar limit as set by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. These two secondary market lenders will only cover loan values under $729,750, which is the new conforming loan limit set by President Bush in February of this past year.  Most jumbo loans will carry a higher interest rate as the risk of default is generally greater on a loan of such value.  With a good credit score the difference in rates is usually not that high, maybe a difference of half a percentage point or three quarters of a point. However, when markets are skittish, rates can vary by as much as 100 basis points.

    In today’s market, jumbo loans with no down payments are not commonplace. Nor are loans with a very small percentage down. More risk for the borrower requires more down payment. More specifically, a lender will be looking for about 5% down to mitigate their risk. With a jumbo loan, your PMI is going to be inherently higher as you are dealing with a larger dollar amount. However, there are techniques that can be used to finance the property with two loans, as is done with loans of lesser value, namely, taking out one loan to cover the down payment, and another to cover the remaining value of the purchase. If you want to save money on the PMI, this is a strategy worth considering.

    When considering saving money on PMI with two loan amounts, a lender may mention something known as Lender Paid Mortgage Insurance. This is basically injecting your insurance into your core interest rate. This isn’t really an unscrupulous practice, because it is known to be insurance that you are paying, however, while PMI usually disappears after twenty percent equity is obtained by the buyer, this lender paid mortgage insurance that is a percentage of your rate, may never really disappear. So, in the long run, you may end up paying more than if you had just paid PMI. Make sure that you consider both payment options when you are offered the ability to pay no PMI with a simple increase in your interest rate.

      Another recent offer of lenders of jumbo loans is to have Arm loan that has a fixed rate for five or seven years and then adjusts annually. However, these loans have rather low rates in these fixed periods and then the loans can fluctuate to higher levels. Due diligence is required as usual.

New home buyers have many questions and need as much guidance as possible. Finding the answers can take a lot of time and sometimes the answers aren’t even understandable. Bond originator companies make things easier, taking the hassle out of buying a house for the first time.

I’m in my 20’s, working hard and my boyfriend and I am thinking of buying a house. Being one of those "creative types”, I have limited knowledge of what exactly is involved in buying a house. Firstly, I want to know, what I have to do to qualify for a home loan / bond. Secondly, I want to know how big a bond I can get. Thirdly, I want to know whether my boyfriend and I can buy a house together, thus apply for a bond together.

I set out to do some research before going out to look for our dream house. Starting at my number one question, "What do I have to do to qualify for a home loan / bond?" I started searching the Internet for more information.

I discovered that there are certain criteria that one has to meet in order to qualify for a bond. Firstly, I discovered that you have to be at least 21 years of age before you will even be considered for a home loan. You have to earn a minimum salary of between R8000 to R10 000- that's as a single income, or as a joint income of you and your partner. You must take into consideration that your credit history will be checked- any negatives on you credit history will count against you when you apply for a home loan / bond! Further more, you need to have a permanent job, where you have worked for at least 6 months, or in the case where you are self-employed you need to have been at it for a minimum of two years.

The above mentioned are the basic requirements in order to qualify for a home loan. Secondly, I was interested to know how big a home loan I could get. As soon as I knew how much, I could start searching for a house. According to numerous reputable websites online, it seems that the size bond I could qualify for is roundabout 25 -30% of my salary (or you and your partners joint salary). The bigger your salary, the bigger the bond you will qualify for and the bigger house, or rather more pricy house you can buy.

Thirdly, I was interested in finding out whether or not my boyfriend and I could apply for a home loan together. This means that even though we are not married, I wanted to know if we could still buy a house together and how this will influence us in the long run. I wanted to know whether "partner" or "couple" means married or not.

According to my bank manager, my boyfriend and I can apply for a bond together, but there are certain things we must take into consideration when we do. It is best to register the house in both our names just incase our relationship ends somewhere in the future. According to Bonny Feldman (First National Bank's Media Liaison), 'common law' relationships are not recognised by South African law. This means that if a relationship ends and the house/property is only registered in one of our names, the other will lose out. She further states that "because you're not seen as husband and wife, the one in whose name the property is registered in is entitled to the full property, even if the other partner contributed significant amounts to settle the bond, for instance. The unlucky partner could try to recover some of this money, but that would involve a legal case, and you'd have to have records of everything spent over the years - and that's not very practical!".

Taking the above into consideration, I've realised that buying a house together is not a small step in ones relationship. There are a lot of things to consider and you will have to work with knowledgeable people who will help you make sure you don’t step into any flames later on.

While doing my investigating I came across quite a few websites, which apply for your home loan or bond- making everything easier in the sense that they do all the hard work for you. They call themselves “independent bond origination" companies and all they need from you are certain documents. Their specialised home loan consultants will contact you and help you through the process step by step.

I think this sounds like a definite option to consider as we are first time buyers and still need some form of guidance. Who knows, this home loan / bond thing might still be easier than I expected!