Tag Archives: home
Are Unsecured Personal Loans Good For Home Improvements
Many advertisements on the internet and on other media suggest that you can use certain unsecured personal loans for whatever purpose including making home improvements. Have you ever wondered whether personal loans are really such a good tool for undertaking home improvement projects? Here are some thoughts about the issue.
Making home improvements often requires financing but not any financial product will do. It needs to provide certain flexibility that is needed to complete any home improvement project. Unsecured personal loans are really a flexible source of financing. Do they have what is needed to finance a home improvement project?
Loan Amount
Unsecured loans do not carry very high amounts and thus, it really depends on the type of improvements you need to make whether an unsecured loan can provide the needed funds or not. Unsecured personal loans can easily provide funds to finance home improvement projects from a couple of hundred dollars up to tens of thousands.
Home equity loans (secured loans), on the other hand, can reach hundred of thousands dollars that can fund more expensive home improvements projects like rebuilding a property, adding floors to a building, etc. Thus, depending on the kind of project you have in mind you will need a secured loan or you may do fine with an unsecured loan.
Overall Costs
The interest rate of unsecured loans is higher than the rate charged for home equity loans or lines of credit and thus, the amount of money you will spend on interests over the whole life of the loan will increase with the loan amount and with every year of the repayment program.
Thus, unsecured loans can be really expensive for financing home improvement projects if you need funds to finance an expensive project and you want to repay the loan in several installments. Anything longer than 48 months will turn out rather expensive compared with a home equity loan of up to 5 years.
Repayment Programs
Unsecured loans do not have long repayment programs. However, given that almost no one undertaking a home improvement project wants to finance for more than 5 years, truth is that unsecured loans do not present limitations on this matter. An unsecured loan repayment program can last from a couple of months up to five years.
Home equity loans for home improvements, on the other hand can be repaid in up to 15 years. These periods of time are useless for inexpensive home improvement projects but can be very useful for high cost home improvements. So, it definitely depends on the cost of the project whether you will do better with an unsecured loan or with a home equity loan or line of credit.
Approval
There are not many differences between the requirements needed to get an unsecured loan or a secured loan when you are using the money for home improvements because in either case you do own a property. However, the loan approval processes of unsecured loans are faster due to the fact that there is very little paperwork to do.
Loan Modification, Workout Options and Other Ways to Avoid Foreclosure
Foreclosure is one of biggest problems the people of America are facing right now. Countless of homeowners default on their mortgages and thus find themselves on the brink of losing their homes, or are already facing the devastating situation already. This widespread occurrence is due to the dire economic situation the country is facing right now and people are simply not able to keep up with their financial obligations as money becomes harder and harder to come by.
The legal process of foreclosure is not suddenit does not happen overnight. It generally takes place when a homeowner consecutively misses mortgage payments every month. These accumulating missed payments prompt lenders to take action. However, theres still hope for those whose properties have not been foreclosed yet. There are in fact a variety of work out options and other ways for a person to avoid foreclosure altogether. A good example is loan modification.
(1) Loan Modification This is probably the most popular and most effective solution to prevent foreclosure. It is a process wherein one or more terms of a borrowers loan are permanently changed. If the loan is modified successfully, the person can expect to enjoy lowered monthly payments, reduced interest rates, a 30 or 40-year fixed loan, principal balance reduction, partially or completely waived past payments, credit preservation and home ownership preservation.
(2) Forbearance This is an agreement with the mortgage company where the homeowner agrees to pay a portion of his or her regular payment or none of it for a certain period of time. The company will then offer that person a temporary reduction or suspension until he or she is able to sort financial matters out and be able to make regular payments. Usually, this is combined with a repayment or reinstatement plan to pay off missed payments.
(3) Refinance As long as the property or home in question has enough equity, the homeowner can use his or her new mortgage to pay off his or her old loan along with any late or even attorneys fees. If this is the chosen alternative to avoid foreclosure, then it is a good idea to look around for the best terms being offered and then compare the Annual Percentage Rate or APR.
(4) Reinstatement A borrower may be given the chance to pay off the total indebted sum in a lump sum payment on a specific, negotiated date. This option is usually combined with forbearance because the person can show that funds from a bonus, tax refund or other sources will become available at a certain time.
(5) Repayment Plan For this workout option, the mortgage company or lender can help the delinquent borrower catch up with missed payments with the creation of a feasible schedule for repaying past due amounts. The amount the borrower is behind can be combined with a portion of what is due on a regular monthly payment.
(6) Short Sale The person can sell his or her home. In case the amount received from the sale is not enough to pay off the loan the mortgage company will be willing to accept a payoff amount thats less than what is owed on the borrowers balance.
(7) Deed-in-lieu Foreclosure The borrower can voluntarily transfer the title of his or her property to the lender in exchange for the cancellation of the mortgage debt.