Feb/120
Home Equity Second Mortgages
Secured loans play a crucial role in home equity second mortgages. You may have one or more secured loans in addition to your first mortgage. These loans are called secured loans because the lender will have registered a charge on your home for the amount of loan. The term charge is used here to both cover a charge and a standard security. The existence of a charge has two important consequences.
Firstly, the lenders can apply to a court for an order to sell your home to get their money back if you do not make the agreed payments or if you break the terms of the mortgage agreement in some other way. Secondly, you must repay to your lenders the sum outstanding on your mortgage when you sell your home. Before a property can change hands the charges must be removed; when the charge is a mortgage, it will only be removed when the loan is repaid. Every mortgage you have will be registered as a charge. These will be listed, usually in the order in which you borrowed the money, so that the first lender will have the first charge, the second lender will have the second charge and so on. This is the order in which the lenders will be repaid if your home is sold.
By the way of charge, the lender has secured the certainty of recovering the money lent, with interest, if you default on the payments. Secured loans may be taken out for any purpose and are normally repaid on a capital repayment basis, but interest rates will usually be higher than for your first mortgage. You are likely to have a shorter mortgage term on your secured loan and this, together with a higher interest rate, will make your monthly payments comparatively high.
Feb/120
Low Interest Secured Credit Cards
If you’re in the market to get a secured credit card, you may be wondering if you can find a card that has a low interest rate. While most of the rates on secured cards are generally high, there are some options when it comes to finding a low rate. Here’s a few tips you can use in order to find a lower rate.
Look for higher fees – I know you won’t want to pay higher fees when it comes to annual fees, monthly fees, etc but generally, when the fees are higher, you’re going to pay less interest. This is a way for the credit card companies to recoup the costs.
Look for intro rates – I know intro rates don’t’ last for long but if you can find one that’s good enough, you may be able to use the card and then request a different type of card. Sometimes this works and sometimes it doesn’t. It never hurts to try! The worst thing that can happen is that you will need to cancel the card.
Research online – There are a lot of cards out there. It’s your job to research all of the cards and find the lowest rate if that’s what you’re worried about. Since rates change on a daily basis, I can’t tell you exactly which card has the best rate.
As long as you do your research and you follow some of the tips above, you’ll be able to find a card that hopefully suits your needs. Honestly though, in the long run, worry about paying your card off in full so that you can avoid the interest rates.
Jan/120
Insurance – It’s Early History
Insurance. What would we do without it? Though it seems impossible, there was a time when insurance on anything didn’t even exist. Unfortunately, the early beginnings of insurance are unclear. Over the centuries there have been key writings uncovered that give us some ideas of it’s beginning s. But as to an actual moment in time when the first item was insured, no one really knows.
There are theories that insurance goes back to the early days of the Babylonian traders at around the 2nd millennium BCE. They created a system which was recorded in the famous Code of Hammurabi around 1750 BC. This system was practiced by early Mediterranean sailing merchants. If a merchant received a loan to fund his shipment he would pay the lender an additional sum in exchange for the lender’s guarantee to cancel the loan should the shipment be stolen.
As a business itself, the first recognizable form of insurance started in Great Britain in 1666. This was in reaction to the “Great Fire Of London.” Because of this incident fire became a growing concern in England. Another major concern in England during the time was marine insurance because of England’s position in the world of sea trade. Some of the early insurance companies of the time were The Sun Fire Office, Royal Exchange Assurance and Hand In Hand.
As was stated above, there were some early writings that point to the first insurance companies and types of insurance. Below are a number of these writings.
From 1680 the following memo was found. “Mr. Newbold, London’s Improvement and the Builders’ Security Asserted, by the apparent advantages that will attend their easie charge, in raising such a joint-stock as may assure a Re-Building of those Houses which shall hereafter be Destroyed by the Casualties of Fire.” This memo appears to point to the beginnings of fire insurance. There were many other memos found during that same time period from 1680 to 1700 all related to fire insurance companies.
In 1697 writings were found to show the beginnings of an insurance company created to insure the welfare of widows and orphans. This appears to be the early beginnings of life insurance. During the period of 1697 to 1762 many other memos were found relating to the establishment of life insurance. Some of the early known companies are The Society For Equitable Insurances, The Perpetual Assurance Office and The Hampshire Society. It wasn’t however until about 1850 that the first evidence of life expectancy actuary tables were found.
The first evidence of insurance for businessmen was memos found going back to the year 1601. Many different kinds of businesses were mentioned in these memos such as small businessmen, mining companies and ship building companies. Evidence also shows that the British took out insurance on their enemies’ ships for the purpose of collecting on them after they were destroyed by the British Navy.
In the next article we’ll go over the various types of insurance that one can purchase today.
Jan/120
Long Term Loans
If you’re after a long term loan there are several different ways to borrow your money. You could try a personal loan, a secured loan, or a re-mortgage. Here we will cover each option starting with the longest payback option.
A Re-mortgage
With this option it is possible to borrow money over a period of up to 40 years. It also allows you to choose if you want fixed rates or variable rates. As with all options you must take careful consideration when borrowing money over such a period. You can easily end up paying back well over 3 times the original amount of money you borrowed. The money is also secured on your property; meaning if you can’t pay it back then the property could be repossessed.
A Secured Loan
You can borrow money over up to 25 years with a secured loan. This is again secured on your home. The APR is likely to be competitive, especially if you have an above average credit rating. Because of the credit crunch there are few lenders offering secured loans at the moment (in 2009). The most you can borrow is also likely to be
Jan/120
Why high-tech fire alarms are a good idea
Article by efishmarketing
The old way of thinking tells us that all you need is a good smoke detector in your home in order to be safe. Technology is changing, though, so homeowners and business owners need to know about the new ways of protecting your home from fire in this day and age. Post Alarm is one company that is helping the people of Los Angeles and San Gabriel Valley protect themselves against the threat of fire and smoke. They are doing this with highly advanced fire alarms that do much more than just beep when smoke arises. These are highly preventative fire alarms that come with monitoring to keep your family or your employees safe.
The value of heat monitoring sensorsWith standard smoke detectors, you will not know about the fire until it is almost too late. In order for there to be enough smoke to set off the alarm the fire has to already be ragging. Though you might be able to get your family out of the home, it is a big risk to take, especially if you do not have a dedicated escape plan. Additionally, you will find it very difficult to get in touch with the proper authorities to save your home in the case of a fire. If you had fire alarms with heat monitoring, you would have more time to get out safely and to save your home. The new fire alarms monitor your home and when it gets far too hot, you are alerted. Additionally, the fire department is automatically called, so you can save valuable time when disaster strikes.
Remote monitoring when you are not homeWhat happens when you are off on vacation and a fire starts? The smoke alarm is going crazy, but that does you absolutely no good in this instance. By the time someone sees the fire and calls the fire department, it is likely too late to save your home and your most valuable possessions. It is depressing to think that what might have been a small fire can knock out your home and your most valuable financial asset. Today’s fire alarms come with remote monitoring. What this means is that even when you are out of town, someone will be looking over your home. If a fire starts or is about to start, the system will detect it and call the authorities. This will give them the best chance of saving your home in its entirety.
Ultimately you owe it to yourself to equip your home with one of the new fire alarms. The people of Southern California have seen enough fires that they should understand the dangers. With the new systems, you can make sure that everyone in your household is able to get out of the home safely and that you will always be protected, no matter where you might be for the weekend.