Thursday, April 19, 2007

Purchase Your Home at Sarasota Real Estate

Tired of paying rent every month? It's time for you to go to Sarasota real estate market and search for your dream home.

Purchasing a home in Sarasota real estate is a huge decision and it is an exciting thing to do as well. In deciding to purchase a home requires a lot of responsibilities and you have to face plenty of responsibilities such as keeping up the payments, maintenance and repairs. But owning your own home has a lot of privileges such as decorating and renovating your home, unlike in renting a home, you can't do any renovating without the knowledge of your landlord.

But of course, before searching for your dream home in Sarasota real estate, you have to settle your finances first. In order for you to look for finances, you can give some time finding a mortgage. Definitely, you will be given plenty of options, so you have to weigh these options first before coming up to any decision. Find a mortgage will terms that will work for you. Make sure to have a pre-approved mortgage. As soon as you have a pre-approved for a mortgage, you can now start looking for your dream home in Sarasota real estate.

Now, you have to search for your dream home. But before that, you have to ask yourself first the features and type you want in a home. Do you prefer a home with a garden or it is better to have a home with low maintenance yard, since you are a busy type of person, how many rooms do you want in a home and so on? It would be wiser to search for the amenities that you can take advantage with.

You can hire a real estate agent especially if you are a first time buyer. The agent can assist you with your buying process in Sarasota real estate. The real estate agent will help you find your dream home.

As soon as you find your dream home, the next thing you and your agent should do is make an offer. Your real estate agent will help you out in making offer since the agent is already expect in this kind of work. But you have to make sure that you hire a real estate agent that is professional and great with this kind of work. You can give some time in searching for the best real estate agent.

After the offer is accepted by the seller, it is wiser to hire a home inspector. The home inspector will see to it if the home is good enough and doesn't have any structural problem at all. The factors that should be inspected by the home inspector are mold, rot, plumbing, wiring issues and so on. If the home inspector find major problem, you can lower your offer or ask your seller to do the repair. But if in case the seller insisted to do the repair, and can just move on and look for another home.

If everything runs smoothly, you can close the deal. Then you have to settle all the paperwork and finalize the final agreement. As soon as all these are completed, it is time for you to move to your dream home. Now, your time and effort became worth it. You can now enjoy your stay with dream home in Sarasota real estate.

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Tuesday, April 10, 2007

Mortgage Refinancing - No Closing Cost - Is it For Real?

You're bombarded with the ads for mortgage companies almost 24 hours a day it seems. "Mortgage Refinancing – No Closing Cost" Some mortgage companies claim they can get you a great mortgage with no closing cost. Others trumpet how they can get you the best rate and fee structure. Still others claim they can get you both the best rate and fee structure and no closing cost. What gives? Is it really possible to get a great rate on your mortgage refinancing effort and pay no closing cost?

First of all, there are a couple of things you need to watch out for. One line the mortgage companies love to use is "No out of pocket cost" Think about that for just a second. That's not the same as no closing cost, is it? In many cases, "No out of pocket cost" means they simply roll the closing costs into your loan, there by increasing your loan balance from the word "Go". Such a mortgage deal usually isn't a very good one. You'll just end up paying not only the closing costs, but the interest on them for 30 years too.

What the heck are closing costs, and why are they part of the mortgage transaction in the first place? You'll find the closing costs can be under one of four general classifications; government fees (taxes, deed recording, etc.), lender fees (points, loan origination, documents, setting up escrow, underwriting), third party fees (title search and insurance, home inspection, appraisal, etc.), escrow and interest (advance payments for PMI, real estate taxes, interest and insurance).

The lender has little control over third party and government fees, however they have supreme control over their own fees. Do they need to charge you an origination fee, points or doc fees? That depends upon how badly they want your business, and how much they're making on the back end of the deal. In most cases they'll sell your loan to another lender on the secondary market. This is known as "selling the paper". They make thousands of dollars when they do this transaction. The more interest they charge you up front, the more they make when they sell your loan to another lender.

If the mortgage company really is offering to pay all the closing costs, check the interest rate you're being offered. Is it competitive? In many cases they claim to be letting you avoid paying the closing costs because they're making plenty of money. At least they're truthful. They are making plenty of money. That's because in the vast majority of cases where the mortgage company offers to pick up the closing cost tab for you, they're kicking up the interest rate a quarter or half a point. In the long run, you'll typically end up backwards on such a deal.

Take a look at this example: You're getting a $250,000 mortgage. Closing costs typically run about 4% of your loan, so figure about $10,000. The key to avoiding excessive fees and other closing costs is to ensure you compare the lender's good faith estimate they provided when approving your mortgage. If you've done so, you'll usually be around the 4% figure. If you're getting a 6% mortgage, you'll pay $289,595 in interest over the term of the mortgage. If the mortgage company changes the interest rate to 6.25%, it may not seem like much, but you'll now pay $304,145. Is it worth saving $10,000 now to pay $15,145 extra in interest over 30 years? It may be depending upon your financial situation.

If your mortgage company rolls the $10,000 into the loan balance, you'll pay $301,179, or almost an extra $12,000 on a 6% mortgage. If they both up the interest rate and roll in the closing costs, look out! You'll end up paying $316,311 in interest over the life of the loan, or almost $27,000 more over the life of your mortgage. What can you do with $27,000? It's up to you. Only you can make the decision which mortgage company to use. The fact is most of them have access to basically the same mortgage products. What, and how, they charge you for them is up to you. Choose your mortgage and mortgage company carefully.

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