Tag Archives: projects
The Truth about State Unclaimed Money
The unclaimed money menace has hardly left any state treasury untouched with an ever increasing influx of unclaimed money and in comparison, a very low number of claims being made. The logistic and bureaucratic mess created by the uncontrolled addition of unclaimed money has given a lot of headache to most of the state treasuries.
It is not surprising that the reimbursement of unclaimed funds has become the first priority for all the state treasuries. Facing these additional financial burdens in these times of economic slump is an unavoidable burden for most of the state governments. The center on Budget and Policy Priorities has been questioning states regarding the budget deficit and what are the plans to minimize it. It estimates that the combined state budget deficit over the next two and a half years is likely to be about $350 billion. This will account for about 20% of the state budget.
The state governments are at a complete loss as to how to manage the increasing pile of this government unclaimed money. More money is being added relentlessly every quarter and the trend continues to speed up with no signs of increasing claim. In order to tackle this unclaimed property menace, the states are forced to adopt new and out-of-the-box strategies in order to create a healthier and stable environment for its residents. Larger states, like California and New York, find themselves in a greater dilemma because of the increasing budget deficit on one hand and the surmounting volume of state unclaimed money on the other.
One of the common refrains of the state government is that there are so many welfare programs which are waiting to be implemented for the lack of funds while unclaimed property vault continues grow larger. Many of the law makers, in states like California and Delaware, have been proposing new ways of utilizing the state unclaimed money towards the social welfare and development projects. These states have taken the first proactive steps and have proposed the utilization of unclaimed funds effectively to fill in the budgetary deficits.
A consensus has emerged whereby the decision makers have agreed to implement the various welfare programs and other development projects without any delay in all the states. It is now universally agreed that while the money should be lawfully returned to the owner, in the absence of any body coming forward to claim it, it is prudent that these vast amount of unclaimed money is diverted toward the social development projects. It is increasingly seen that the decision makers are actively supporting the idea of unclaimed property auction. Apart from a few dissenting voices, this idea is getting a lot of support from everybody, including the citizens of the state.
In addition to the state unclaimed money, there is an equally large number of unclaimed properties that are waiting to be claimed. States like Delaware and California have started the public auction of unclaimed properties in the state, and this has contributed immensely towards the boosting of state economies resulting in the increase of state revenues by more than10%.
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.