Important Factors When Buying A New Home

Most of the time when buying a property, there are a few obvious factors that you will consider – such as the location, the number of bedrooms, the accessibility to schools or your workplace, the need for repairs and any interior features. However, there are a few things that might not have crossed your mind during your house hunting but are still quite important. Water Quality Most home buyers don’t even think about the water quality at the property until they get to the inspection stage. However, if you find out that the home has hard water this will dull your clothes when you wash them and irritate your skin. Hard water will also create calcium deposits within your showers and faucets and even inside your washing machine and dishwasher. Have the water tested so you know its quality and can look into options for a water purification system. Cell Phone Reception When looking at a house, don’t forget to pull out your cell phone and check to make sure that you get good reception.

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Vote BBMC for Lender of the Year

If you love Bridgeview Bank Mortgage, let it be known! Vote for us for Lender of the Year though Chicago Agent Magazine. Simply naviagate to http://chicagoagentmagazine.com/vote-now-agents-choice-awards/ or click here.

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What’s Ahead For Mortgage Rates This Week of September 23, 2013

Last week’s economic news was dominated by the Federal Reserve’s decision not to taper its $85 billion in monthly securities purchases. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke noted in a scheduled statement after the Federal Open Market Committee meeting that economic conditions were not yet adequately improved to withstand any decrease in the federal quantitative easing program. The Fed also reaffirmed that the target federal funds rate would remain at 0.00 to 0.25 percent until the national unemployment rate reached 6.50 percent and inflation reaches 2.00 percent. The national unemployment rate was 7.30 percent and the Fed projects that inflation will remain under 2.00 percent through 2015. In both the FOMC statement and his press conference, Chairman Bernanke repeatedly emphasized that the Fed would take no action to reduce QE until the economy strengthens. No automatic reduction of QE purchases would take place without full consideration of the nation’s economy. The QE program is intended

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What To Know About Mortgage Insurance

If you are on the verge of buying real estate, you’ve probably heard the term Private Mortgage Insurance. Mortgage professionals talk about it a great deal, but you may be asking, “What is it exactly? And why should I care?” Private Mortgage Insurance Defined PMI is required by lenders if the down payment of a purchase is less than 20 percent of the home’s value. It protects the lender if the borrower defaults on the loan. It also makes the lender more apt to loan, even if the down payment is as low as 3%, because in the long run, the lender’s investment is protected. You Pay For It Unlike other types of insurance which you pay to protect your interest in an asset, you pay Private Mortgage Insurance to the mortgage company to protect its interest in your new real estate. (Note that PMI is not usually tax deductible. Check with a tax professional for details.) Make It Go Away: PMI Can Be Terminated Once You’ve Paid Down Your Loan Once you pay down your mortgage to the point

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How to Deal With A Disaster in Your Home

Weather patterns across the United States seem to be getting more and more erratic. From tornadoes and earthquakes to flash floods and wild fires, there are many natural disasters that can quickly consume your home without warning. Because you never know when disaster might strike, it’s best to be prepared. Disaster insurance is the only precaution you can put in place to ensure compensation for your belongings and get your life back to normal as soon as possible. Below are the tips to take before misfortune strikes. Create An Inventory Most insurance agencies prefer if you include photographs of every room, including the insides of closets and cabinets. Shooting a video is even better. Then you can include audio of how much things cost or if they’re one of a kind. It’s also a good idea to create a spreadsheet with a list of major items and their value by room. Be sure to email these to yourself, so that you can access them anywhere. Double-Check Your Coverage Once you’ve inve

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Consider Interviewing Architects Before Building A New Home

Making the decision to build a home might be one of the biggest you make in your life. You’ve found the perfect plot of land and have a vision of what type of home you want, but you need someone to bring your dream to life. That means it’s time to start interviewing architects. Hiring an architect isn’t as simple as just calling up a few and seeing who might have the time. You’ll want to ensure you choose a professional that understands your design aesthetic, communicates well, can design on budget and has an upstanding reputation. Below are a few key questions to ask when deciding whom to hire. Do You Have A Specific Design Style? When interviewing architects, be sure to ask each one if they have a specific aesthetic and if you can see a portfolio of his or her work. While most are adaptable, they usually all have design themes that recur in their projects. Whether you want a minimalist structure or LEED certified construction, you’ll want to know they have the experience.

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Read This Before Signing Your Reverse Mortgage

There are many reasons people take out reverse mortgages. However, this option is usually considered by cash-strapped seniors who own their homes and are looking to ease the burden of their golden years. The beauty of reverse mortgages is that you’ll receive money as long as you are current on property taxes and homeowners insurance. While this seems like an appealing opportunity, it’s a decision that should not be made lightly. Not only is the reverse mortgage complicated in itself, but homeowners make all sorts of mistakes when they’re too quick to sign the dotted line. So if you’re considering one, be wary of the common pitfalls below. Buying Into A Scam With reverse mortgages becoming a more common option for those over 62, mischievous opportunists are searching for ways to solicit seniors in need of help. Scammers will take advantage by charging high fees, funneling off parts of payments, creating fake loans or committing identity theft. Ensure you use a lender approved b

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What’s Ahead For Mortgage Rates This Week

Last week didn’t feature any housing-related news other than Freddie Mac’s weekly survey of mortgage interest rates. Reports on consumer credit, job openings and weekly jobless claims suggest that without some relief in the jobs market, Americans may be taking a “wait-and-see” stance toward buying homes. Consumer Credit Rose By $10.40 Billion In July The Federal Reserve reported Tuesday that revolving credit fell by an annual rate of 2.60 percent as compared to an annual decrease of 5.20 percent in June. Non-revolving consumer credit such as vehicle and education loans rose at an annual rate of 7.40 percent. Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey indicated that mortgage rates were unchanged for both 30-year and 15-year fixed rate mortgage loans. The average rate for a 30-year FRM was 4.57 percent with discount points of 0.80 percent; this was higher than last week’s 0.70 percent. Average rates for a 15-year fixed rate mortgage were unchanged at 3.57 percent with 0.70

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How To Create The Perfect Garage Workshop

Most men, and even handy women, dream of a perfectly organized work space where their tools are orderly and they can tackle that list of home DIY projects. However, renovations can get put on hold because there’s not a designated place to work. Tools are usually scattered throughout closets and the kitchen table serves as a workbench. You can create a space for all of your improvement projects by turning a section of your garage into a construction-friendly, wonderfully organized haven for your tools and home makeover endeavors. Below are easy steps to building the perfect garage workshop. Make Sure You Have Adequate Space Ideally, you’d still like to be able to get your cars in their designated space, so look for a vacant area at the back of the garage or along one side. If you’re garage isn’t quite large enough, then you might want to consider adding on to it or building an outdoor shed. Create A Work Surface For your work surface, you could repurpose old kitchen cabinets wi

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Think Twice Before Paying Off Your Mortgage Too Quickly

Most of the financial advice out there is focused on how you can pay off the mortgage on your home as quickly as possible, from making lump sum payments to switching to bi-weekly payments rather than monthly. However, there are a few things that you might want to consider before you put all of your financial efforts into paying off your mortgage as quickly as possible. Diversifying Your Investments Of course, paying off your mortgage as fast as possible has a number of obvious advantages. You will be able to own your home a lot sooner and you will decrease the amount of interest you pay over the years. However, are you diversifying your assets? Savvy investors know that they should decrease their risk by spreading their money into a number of different types of assets and investments so that they don’t have ”all their eggs in one basket.” If you have extra money and you want to invest it, you might want to make sure that you have a variety of investments including savings, stock

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Rounding Up Your Mortgage Payment

Paying off the mortgage on your home as quickly as possible will ensure that you pay less interest and save money in the long term. But how can you accelerate those payments so that you own your home sooner? One simple and easy way that you can pay off your mortgage faster is to round up your mortgage payment to the nearest $100 interval. So, for example, if your mortgage payment is $756 per month, you can pay $800 instead. Not only will this help you to pay off your mortgage sooner, but round numbers are also much easier to handle for simple calculations. You will be able to look at your bank account and easily subtract your mortgage payment in your head to get an idea of where your money stands. Will This Really Make a Difference? By rounding up your mortgage payment, you won’t notice the difference in your day to day expenses but you will really notice the difference when it comes to the overall lifespan of your mortgage. In your monthly budget, you will have already mentally all

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7 Simple Steps To Finish Your Basement

Get in the spirit of the coming weekend and put the labor of love into your home by creating a cozy hideaway that your family can retreat to once the outdoors become too chilly. One of the best places to create this snug space is to mimic hibernating animals and go under ground — to the basement. Whether your lowest level needs a facelift or is completely unfinished, Labor Day weekend is the perfect time to make a game plan and get started on remodeling your basement. Step 1 – Obtain A Permit Before you can just slap up insulation and drywall, you need to make sure your basement is even fit to dwell in. Check with your city to ensure there aren’t any permits you need to obtain and that the space is up to code. If you don’t do it right, then this update could haunt you when it comes time to sell. Step 2 – Get The Air Flowing You’ll want this space to be warm in winter and cool in the summer. Contact a contractor to see if getting air to this lower level will be as easy as t

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What’s Ahead For Mortgage Rates This Week – 9.9.13

Last week was relatively calm due to the Labor Day Holiday on Monday providing little mortgage and housing related news. However, there were several positive indicators for overall economic conditions. Construction spending rose by 0.60 percent in July and surpassed economists’ expectations of 0.30 percent and June’s zero percent growth. While this may seem a small increase, any indication that construction spending is increasing could indicate that residential construction is ramping up. This would be good news for home buyers, who’ve been facing a shortage of available homes in many areas of the U.S. The Fed Released Its Latest Beige Book Report Federal Reserve districts reported rising consumer spending in most districts, modest expansion in manufacturing and moderate residential real estate sales. Higher mortgage rates may have dampened home buyer enthusiasm, but an ongoing shortage of available homes is also likely to have contributed to slower sales. Mortgage rates will li

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Case Shiller Price Index Shows Home Prices Are Still Increasing

Home prices are still rising, but at a slower pace according to the S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Indices for June. Home prices for the cities surveyed in the HPI rose by 12.10 percent on an annual basis as compared to May’s reading of 12.20 percent. This is the highest rate of monthly growth for home prices since the peak of the housing bubble in 2006. June’s home prices remained approximately 23 percent lower than peak prices, but economists consider the bubble peak an anomaly and caution against comparing current home prices to the peak prices seen in 2006. Overall Housing Price Increase Strongly Regional home prices reported in June’s HMI were mixed. Case-Shiller publishes a 10-city Index and a 20-city Index of home prices. 13 of 20 cities saw their rates of rising home prices decline from May to June. Atlanta posted the highest month-to-month gain in home prices at 3.40 percent. Washington, D.C. posted the slowest month-to-month gain in home prices at 1.00 percent. New York C

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Pending Home Sales Indicates That The Housing Recovery Is Progressing

The National Association of REALTORS reported Wednesday that pending sales of existing homes fell by 1.30 percent in July. According to the organization’s Pending Home Sales Index, this was the second straight month that pending home sales dropped. July’s Pending Home Sales Index reading was 109.50. Signed Purchase Contracts For Existing Homes Tracked In The U.S. ·Northeast: – 6.60 percent ·Midwest: – 1.00 percent ·West: 4.90 percent ·South: + 2.60 percent Pending home sales were 6.70 percent higher year-over-year on a national basis. This indicates that the housing recovery is progressing, but at a slower pace. Short supplies of available homes have also impacted sales. In some areas homebuyers are facing competition from multiple buyers for individual homes. Another report released earlier in the week showed that the pace of rising home prices also slowed. This connects with fewer pending home sales, as when demand for homes cools, prices are likely to fall as well. Pend

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7 Tips On Getting A New Mortgage After Bankruptcy

You have found your dream home and you are eager to get a mortgage, move into the property and start enjoying life there. However, there is only one problem standing in your way – the fact that you have been through some hard financial times in the past. If you (or your partner) have been bankrupt previously, will this affect your chances of being able to buy the home you want? The good news is that it is still possible to obtain a mortgage even if you have been bankrupt before. Here are some tips that will help you to increase your chances of mortgage success: Choose the right lender. Some lenders may not approve your new mortgage if a bankruptcy shows up on your credit history. However, there are some that do as long as you are able to prove that you have the income to make your payments. If your bankruptcy was caused by factors that are beyond your control, it may be easier to get a new mortgage as opposed to a bankruptcy that was caused by poor money management. Explain the circ

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