Finance — Home and Mortgage

• Make Your Money Work for You: Five Tips for the Aspiring Homeowner

  Home ownership, a vital element in what constitutes The American Dream, is certainly a blessing. Unfortunately, it also contains the seeds of what can be financial misfortune, perhaps never more graphically depicted than in a 1986 Steven Spielberg movie, The Money Pit, in which a young couple experiences every calamity possible in remodeling a dilapidated house. With the aim of helping aspiring homeowners avoid some common errors, I want to pass on five tips.

• How Mortgage Prepayments Work

  I once heard a financial planner say you can reduce the numbers of years it takes to pay your house off. She said that if you make one extra house payment a year, you could reduce a 30-year mortgage to 22 years and a 15-year mortgage to a 12 years. Can you please explain how this works?

• Mortgage Fees – What Should You Pay, What Shouldn’t You?

  Unless you’re in the mortgage industry or obtain home financing on a regular basis, mortgage fees and terms can be confusing, and downright frustrating. Mortgage and financing terms are like another language, much like the “legalese” used by lawyers.

• Before You Buy a Home

  Buying a home is a complicated process and takes some work to do it right.

• Piggyback Mortgages and PMI

  Many people are anxious to enter the housing market. Low interest rates make mortgages more affordable. But they also drive up housing prices. Which means more people are having trouble saving an adequate down payment.

• Temporary Downsizing?

  Is it smart to use your big asset to pay off debt and “slim down” for a few years, or is it stupid to give up a chance to continue earning equity?

• Using ROI at Home

  The idea of ROI (Return On Investment) is fairly simple. A business investment should save or make money. The ROI calculation is an attempt to determine how much each dollar invested will return. If a business has limited resources only the highest ROI projects would be financed.

• Single Parent Homeowner

  Are you a single parent trying to keep the family home? The bad news is that your not likely to find anyone to offer you a lower rate because you’re a single parent. The good news is that there are some things that you can do to stay in your home.