BAD CREDIT MORTGAGE REFINANCE – CAN YOU GET A LOW MORTGAGE RATE?

Going through the bad credit Mortgage refinance process in the current economic environment could save you a great deal of money.  Mortgage rates are the lowest they have been since May and most financial institutions are willing to lend money even to those that are considered bad credit.  If you have a very bad credit score it is not likely that you are going to get a very low mortgage rate but you could still save quite a bit of money on your monthly mortgage payments by refinancing.
The refi boom that the government was hoping for has yet to truly take place.  The first time home buyers tax credit has greatly helped the housing market find its footing but it seems that the expiration of this tax credit is going to put us right back where we started.  There has been many talks about extending the first time buyers credit but nothing has been signed into effect.
The only way that the government is truly going to see the refi boom it wants to see is if mortgage rates hit an all time low and even bad credit borrowers are allowed to take advantage of low mortgage interest rates.  Obviously bad credit borrowers will never be able to refinance at rates under 5% but that doesn’t mean that they cannot at least refinance to a lower mortgage interest rate to save some money.
One of the main intentions of President Obama’s mortgage plan was to allow all borrowers to have access to low interest rates.  There is little doubt that this has helped some to refinance to lower rates but there still needs to be more progress.  Many home owners continue to struggle to make their mortgage payment and they need all the assistance they can get to end up with a lower monthly mortgage payment.
Being able to refinance at a lower rate is a great way to allow bad credit home owners to lower their monthly mortgage payment.  The issue at hand is that this risky borrowers always have the chance of defaulting.  WIth foreclosure rates at an all time high, banks and lending institutions are very weary of lending money to anyone considered bad credit.  This does not mean that you should not try!  There are lenders out there who will help you so get out there and see how low of a refinance rate you can get!


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BAD CREDIT MORTGAGE REFINANCE – LOW CREDIT SCORE REFINANCE RATES

Getting a bad credit mortgage refinance has become very common in the current economic environment.  Finding out what the low credit score refinance rates currently are can often be a problem because each situation is a little bit different.  If you are teetering on the edge of bad credit but are not considered a horrible credit borrower than your refinance rate might be much better a true bad credit borrower with a credit score under 600.
One of the first thing that all bad credit borrowers should do is find out exactly what their credit score is.  Without knowing your true credit score you will be unable to predict, with an accuracy, what your mortgage rate could or should be.  It is well worth it to fork over the $15 and find out your current FICO score.  It will not only help you predict your mortgage rate but it will also explain the current interest rate you have on any line of credit.
If you want to lower your refinance rate the best way to do so is to increase your credit score.  The process of increasing your credit score can often take several months or longer so if you want to go through the home refinance process now it is unlikely you will be able to increase your score in time.  If you are willing to wait to go through the refinance process you can start repairing your credit today.
The most important things you can do to improve is make sure all your bills are paid on time and in full as well as pay down some of your high interest credit cards and any other high interest line of credit you have.  The closer your credit cards are to being maxed you the worse your credit score will get.  If you have several credit cards that are almost maxed out it is going to greatly lower your score.
One of the problems many Americans have is that they do not have enough money to pay bills no less pay down their credit cards.  With this being the case sometimes we have to do some things we do not want to do.  If you have to get a second or third job to pay your way out of debt then it might be necessary to take those steps.  If you want a lower bad credit refinance mortgage rate this might be what you have to do.



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BAD CREDIT MORTGAGE REFINANCE – ARE LOW MORTGAGE RATES ATTAINABLE?

Going through the bad credit mortgage refinance process could save you a lot of money if you can refinance to a lower mortgage interest rate.  The question that many poor credit borrowers have is “are low mortgage rates attainable with bad credit?”  This question can only be answered by going through the mortgage application process; each situation is unique so no one can answer this other than your lender.
There are many mortgage lenders who are more than happy to help bad credit borrowers with the refinance process.  By simply doing a few quick Google searches you will find plenty of companies out there that are advertising hard for your business.  Just because they are advertising hard does not mean they will suit your needs.
Make sure to do your research before deciding on any company that is going to handle your personal finances.  There have been way too many Americans who have been put in bad situations because they signed a financial document that they did not understand or did not read.  You do not want to be one of these individuals.
With that being said, the mortgage lending industry is like any other industry; there are good companies and there are bad companies.  It is up to you to find out which company works best for you.  These companies remain in business for a reason.  There credit crunch has weeded out the really bad business so the ones that are currently running smoothly have done a good job of surviving the disaster.
Do not get discouraged if you are denied the mortgage rate you want.  By simply increasing your credit score by a few points you can lower your mortgage interest rate significantly.  This may be the difference in several hundred dollars a month that you can put towards other bills that need to be paid.



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Bad Credit Mortgage Refinance Loan - Sometimes Too Good To Resist

Bad credit mortgage refinance is refinancing the first loan despite bad credit.

Some of the reasons for seeking mortgage refinance are as follows.
The monthly payment of the first loan, which was affordable a few months back, is now not affordable just because of reasons like accident, sickness, debt, divorce, loss of job, reduction in salary, loss in business, etc.
The debt, due to use of multiple credit card, may have blown out of proportions, making the monthly payment for the first loan impossible.

Majority of the people seek mortgage refinance or loan modification to:
lower the monthly payment
reduce the applicable rate of interest
improve the credit score
reduce the total loan
avail cash out refinance and get some cash to get rid of other debts

Availability of Bad Credit Mortgage Refinance
Nowadays mortgage refinance with bad credit is available just because of stiff competition among the finance companies and the applicants with good credit are dwindling drastically.
There are some lenders that do not entertain the applications of bad credit mortgage refinance.
While there are other lenders who would like to take disadvantage of the applicant's bad credit score and try to force bankruptcy and foreclose the home of the debtor. This kind of lenders may charge higher monthly payment, more rate of interest and penalize with dire consequences like foreclosure of residence in the event of missing a monthly payment.
One should first try to improve the credit score and then try to seek mortgage refinance.
Bad Credit Mortgage Refinance should be resorted to only when the chances of improving the credit score are bleak and you need cash urgently.

Our bad credit second mortgage services:
This includes arranging for bad credit second mortgage loan
with affordable monthly payment and rate of interest,
from a reputed and reliable finance company,
with assurance of improvement in credit score
assuring you of reduction in mental stress


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Lloyds: fifth of mortgage customers in negative equity

A fifth of Lloyds Banking Group mortgage customers were in negative equity at the end of June, figures from the bank revealed today.

Halifax owner Lloyds said falling house prices were to blame for the figure, although high loan-to-value mortgages would have left homeowners at greater risk of owing more than their property was worth.

Lloyds said total mortgage lending by its high street business was £18.3 billion in the first half of the year, nearly 60% less than the figure in the same period last year.

The firm said the overall mortgage market for both house purchase and re-mortgage had "slowed considerably" with a 55% drop in lending as low interest rates on lenders' standard variable rates dissuade home owners from looking for new deals.

The proportion of customers in negative equity jumped to 20.4% by June 30, from 16.2% in December.

The lender also revised its predictions for house price falls today to 7% or less during 2009, from an initial 15% forecast.

A spokeswoman for Lloyds said neither of the main Lloyds TSB or Halifax lending businesses had ever offered more than 100% mortgages, although she said the Birmingham Midshires arm had offered a 125% deal that was withdrawn from the market last February.

Within the figures, almost a third of buy-to-let mortgages and 25.9% of specialist loans - which include controversial self-certified and sub-prime deals - were in negative equity.

The UK's largest lender also said the rate of mortgage defaults rose in the period, with 2.44% of loans more than three months in arrears compared with 1.79% in December.

Lloyds said 1.1% of those who owed more than their home was worth were more than three months in arrears.

Across the whole high street business - including personal loans and credit cards - bad debt charges rose 60% on last year, to £2.2 billion, due to rising unemployment and falling house prices.

Lloyds said the increase in joblessness this year means it expects a moderate rise in bad debt charges in the second half of the year for the division, which should represent the peak of its impairments.

The bank stopped all sub-prime and self certified mortgages at the beginning of the year and said it would now focus on prime lending.

Around 80,000 mortgages - or 2.44% of the whole portfolio - were in arrears.

Of these, Lloyds said around 3% of the buy-to-let loans it had inherited from HBOS were in default. This compares with 0.73% of buy to let mortgage accounts from Lloyds TSB.

The firm said its high street arm had "maintained its commitment to the housing market", by allocating more than 50% of new lending in the first half for house purchase rather than for re-mortgage.

The bank said its share of gross lending in the mortgage market had reduced to 27% from 30% last year.

Net mortgage lending in the period - which strips out repayments and redemptions - was £1 billion, representing a 37% share of the market.

Lloyds has committed to lending £28 billion in mortgages and business loans over the next two years.

It has also identified £300 billion of risky assets - about a third of the group's total balance sheet - and will run off £200 billion in the next five years. It said about £100 billion will be used for business and household lending.

The bank said its wholesale division "fully embraces its role in supporting the recovery in the UK economy" and would support businesses.

It said lending to small businesses was ahead year-on-year in Lloyds TSB and Bank of Scotland was reopened to new lending, while 60,000 new commercial accounts were opened.

Total loans and advances to customers in its wholesale division slid 8% to £216.4 billion.

Impaired loans increased by 72% to £31.7 billion, while losses on bad debts rocketed more than 800% to £8.3 billion.

The firm added that its small business portfolio was "showing signs of stress", but said that was to be expected at this stage in the recession.


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Should Northern Rock cut mortgage rates?

Northern Rock became infamous for its 125% Together mortgage and was at the forefront of the 100%-plus mortgage movement.
However, while it had a chunk of customers with little equity, or none at all, it also had plenty of customers with good credit histories and substantial equity.

Since then a 20% fall in property prices has hit and this has caused major problems for those who took out mortgages with little or no deposit.

They are now in negative equity – their mortgage is worth more than their property - and will find it difficult to remortgage or move home.

But being in negative equity does not mean you will default on your mortgage or lose your home, as long as you can keep up with monthly payments and preferably start overpaying to chip away at the debt.

And this is where Northern Rock's bad debt problem comes in.

Northern Rock's bad mortgage debts have been exacerbated by the decision to encourage remortgaging customers to leave Northern Rock following its nationalisation: with the carrot of telling them they could get better deals elsewhere and the stick of failing to lower standard variable rates in line with the base rate.

This led to large numbers of good borrowers deserting Northern Rock for better rates at other lenders, but those who had borrowed large amounts found themselves unable to get mortgage deals from rivals.

These borrowers are now stuck with Northern Rock and despite Government calls on lenders to lower mortgage rates as the base rate fell, the taxpayer-owned bank has been one of those that failed to pass on all the cuts, leaving its already struggling borrowers paying over the odds.


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The banks’ hands are tied on mortgage rates

With a charge sheet that runs from applying rip-off fees to triggering a global economic meltdown, it is little wonder that banks have come in for so much stick lately.

But while much of the criticism has been fully deserved, there is one accusation, repeated again this week, that has been grossly exaggerated.

Despite what many people believe, the simple fact is that lenders are not profiteering from mainstream residential mortgages.

The case against banks and building societies is superficially appealing. The official cost of borrowing, as determined by the Bank of England base rate, is only 0.5 per cent, while Libor (the London Inter Bank Offer Rate), which is the average wholesale cost of funds to the banks is not much higher at 1 per cent. At the same time, the cost of the average two-year fixed-rate mortgage is 5.23 per cent and the average rate on a two-year tracker deal is 4.74 per cent. Two years ago, shortly before the credit crunch started, the difference between Libor and the average two-year fix was only 0.31 percentage points. Now the gap has widened to 3.86 points. But this simplistic analysis does not tell anything like the whole story.

For a start, Libor is only an average rate — the actual wholesale cost of borrowing for most lenders, particularly building societies, is much higher. There are also many other costs that lenders are now incurring that did not exist one or two years ago.

For example, banks and building societies now have to pay an increased levy to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme for bailing out savers who had money deposited with institutions that have since collapsed, such as Icesave, the Icelandic bank, and Dunfermline Building Society.

Lenders are also making bigger losses on bad loans as the recession bites, as well as having to fund cheap mortgages linked to the Bank of England base rate. Then there is the cost of the government guarantees that are required to raise finance in bond markets.

Perhaps more importantly, however, comparisons between wholesale borrowing costs and residential mortgage rates are less relevant now that lenders increasingly use savers to fund their home loans.

The freezing of wholesale money markets means that most banks, and all building societies, now raise the majority of their funds through retail deposits — and they are having to pay handsomely to do so. There are now five separate fixed-term savings accounts paying more than 5 per cent, well in excess of the Bank of England base rate.

A good example is Yorkshire Building Society, which relies on savers to fund approximately three quarters of its mortgages. The Bradford-based mutual is currently offering a two-year fixed-rate saving bond with a rate of 3.5 per cent. Borrowers (with a 40 per cent deposit) can get a two-year fixed-rate mortgage with the same society at 4.29 per cent, a difference of only 0.79 percentage points. When you take into account all the aforementioned costs, this does not look anything like profiteering.

The graph above illustrates this trend across the wider market, with the gap between average savings accounts and best-buy mortgage rates remaining fairly steady over the past two years.

Of course, that is not to say that banks and building societies’ lending practices have been perfect over the past 12 months. Far from it. The cost of loans for borrowers who are perceived not to be a perfect lending risk has risen far beyond what is reasonable. In many cases, lenders have been overcautious. In others, borrowers have been treated shabbily.

Almost every week another example of poor conduct emerges. Last week it was Nationwide offering existing customers a poor-value one-year fix. This week it was Northern Rock trying to persuade customers to switch deals, which could mean that they incur thousands of pounds of early redemption charges only months before their existing deals expire.

But while individual lenders can be criticised for much, the industry as a whole is, on balance, being unfairly maligned over the margins that it makes on mortgages.


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Studlea and the Art of Debt Consolidation

There has been far more activity in the financial world over the last couple of weeks than many will have seen in the news, mainly because it is difficult for the journalists to make bad news out of it. It's a shame really, because there is a fair bit of bad news if only they realised it, but more of this next time.

Before getting into all that, a few quick snippets.

Interest Rate Sweepstake

Please let me have your selection as to which month you think interest rates will rise. As widely anticipated there was no change in July, so our sweepstake is now pick 1 from 11. When do you think interest rates will first increase? You can choose any month from August through to June next year. (Consensus so far is around November to January). A prize to all who pick the right one.
Studlea Update

He walks! Wobbly, and not very far, but very definitely walking although a polished floor still produces a four legged feline version of the splits, and obviously, he still blames me when he falls over, even if I'm the other side of the room. This improvement is some weeks later than the surgeon anticipated, but with suitable irony, the surgeon himself explained he was having a minor surgery and would be off work for a week. That was nearly three weeks ago...
Debt Consolidation

Over the last few weeks, I have had conversations with several different families who are under the weight of an array of borrowing arrangements, including mortgage, loans, credit cards and so on. The theme is the same; a desire to reduce outgoings but there is a right way and a wrong way. I would venture however, to be burdened with debt in modern society is not a failing of the family in most cases, but a failure of government and regulators who forced house prices up and allowed lenders to over extend their customers.

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You Can Still Apply For A Bad Credit Loan Or A Bad Credit Remortgage.

Even if you have a bad, or even an extremely poor credit rating, funds for bad credit loans are still out there.


Many people in the UK are struggling under the burden of a pile of debt because they think that loans which could offer them a glimmer of hope in the dark tunnel in which they find themselves are simply not available. They convince themselves that there is no financial help available. This is simply not correct. There are still funds available for all kinds of loans whether it is a debt consolidation loan, a secured loan, a homeowner loan, a car loan, etc. etc.

Many people with a good credit rating are of this belief, so what about the others with a poor, or even an extremely poor rating? They struggle on thinking that no lender would as much as grant them a second look. Due to the present economic climate their household income has been reduced due to overtime hours having been cut or one household member only now working part time hours for example. For the first time in their life they, through no fault of their own, have defaults registered against their name due to making late payments on their credit cards and loans. In the process of robbing Peter to pay Paul, some mortgage payments have been missed resulting in mortgage arrears being registered against them with credit reference agencies such as Equifax and Experian. They struggle on and no longer have the priviledge of enjoying a really good night's sleep. This is giving yourself needless torment. Granted if you are a tenant it will be virtually impossible to get help with your financial struggle,as unsecured lender, Welcome Finance, who specialized in sub prime loans is no longer lending. However if you are a homeowner bad credit loans are still available.

The interest rates are actually quite high, but who can expect anything else to be the case when these adverse credit loans are available to homeowners with unlimited adverse points registered against them? The oldest UK secured loan lender, which in 2002 became known as Prestige Finance, are offering bad credit loans to homeowners at up to 60% LTV, that is, loan to value, and up to 55% LTV for the self employed. At this LTV up to a maximum of four missed mortgage payments in the course of the past year are acceptable. If however the four missed payments occured in four consecutive months the application will have to naturally be referred for prior approval to the bad credit loan lender.Unlimited adverse in mortgage arrears, defaults, CCJ's are accepted at 50% LTV. This means that if your property is worth £300,000 and your mortgaqe balance is £120,000 you can borrow up to £30,000. The bad credit loans are available from £5,000 minimum to a maximum loan of £30,000.

Self certification of income is available for those who are self employed. However if this self employed individual has more than four months mortgage arrears, an accountant's certificate is required to back up the self declaration. Therefore for those crushed under a heavy mountain of debt these bad credit loans are a God send, and offer the poor suffering homeowner a much needed breath of relief, and should see them through the credit crunch when their working hours return hopefully to normal If repayments are kept up, and remember to make sure that you can afford the repayments, and that the loan will 100% alleviate your financial situation,you will in the future , be eligible again, with this tidying up of your debts and credit,thanks to the bad credit loan, to apply for status finance for loans, credit cards, etc.If it is a remortgage that you prefer,the good news is that bad credit remortgages are still available and these offer you the same life altering peace of mind changes as do the bad credit loans.

Two of the main bad credit remortgage lenders are Platform &The Mortgage Works. They also accept self declarations of income for the self employed, but be warned that they do reserve the right to ask for back up proof of income in the form of an accountant's reference or even full accounts. Both these types of bad credit borrowings should enable you to come out of the tunnel at the end of the credit crunch in a healthier state than you are in at present, that is in a healthier state financially and also in your mental well being. Just make sure before applying for either of these bad credit loans that you can afford the repayments, and that they will definately help your financial struggles, and take you out from under the burden of debt. The apply for the bad credit loan, and enjoy your new peace of mind.

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