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An Explanation Of The Different Kinds Of Mortgages

We have summarized some of the more common kinds of mortgages that are available to homeowners below so that you can be confident when approaching the home buying process.

Published

4 years ago

August 3, 2019

TwinzTech

So you have found your dream house and are ready to make an offer. Congratulations! All that is left to do now is get a home loan secured from a lender to pay for the house. If you are a first-time homebuyer it can, of course, be confusing to navigate all of the ins and outs of getting a mortgage and it is not an easy process.

Before making a final decision on a home loan, be sure to research all of the mortgage options that are available to you very thoroughly. The home’s location, how long you are planning to live in the house, and competition from other buyers for the home are all factors to consider when shopping for a home loan. You will ideally also want a mortgage that does not break your budget with high-interest rates and exorbitant fees.

We have summarized some of the more common kinds of mortgages that are available to homeowners below so that you can be confident when approaching the home-buying process.

Table of Contents

1. The Basics

Homeowners need to be aware that a majority of mortgages are either classified as conventional home loans or government-insured loans. The federal government insures government-insured loans, but not conventional home loans – which makes them a bit riskier for lenders. That means that home buyers who are looking to take out a conventional home loan are going to likely need to have excellent credit.

The size of a home loan is another way to characterize them. Most of them are either jumbo loans or conforming loans. Along with the size and insurance source of a loan, the structure of the interest rate is another key characteristic of home loans.

Typically, mortgages are either classified as fixed-rate mortgages, which means that the interest rate does not change, or as adjustable-rate mortgages, which means the interest rate adjusts and changes over time based on the current market conditions.

2. Conventional Mortgage

One of the more common kinds of mortgages that are available to homeowners is the conventional home loan. The federal government does not insure this type of loan. Non-conforming home loans are conventional mortgages that exceed federal loan limits. A jumbo home loan is the most common kind of non-conforming home loan. Bankrate.com says that jumbo home loans are used whenever the price of the home exceeds the federal loan limit.

Since the government does not back conventional loans there isn’t any guarantee that the borrower will pay back the loan, which for the lender, makes them a riskier type of loan to offer. That is why typically conventional home loan borrowers must have limited debt, a good credit history, and a high income. It can be hard to qualify for conventional mortgages, but for those homeowners who are able to, there are some advantages. If a 20 percent down payment or more is made on a conventional mortgage, private mortgage insurance (PMI) will not need to be paid.

3. Government-Insured Mortgage

Government-backed loans are a popular alternative to conventional mortgages. Three government agencies insure these loans, including the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), the US Department of Veteran Affairs (VA), and the Federal Housing Administration (FHA). The following is a quick overview of these three government-insured types of mortgages.

FHA Loans – An FHA mortgage is often considered to be the easiest type of loan for homeowners to get. The reason for this is that lenders will be more likely to take on the risk of borrowers who are less than perfect since the loan will be covered by the FHA if the borrower falls behind on their payments. A large down payment is not required by the Texas FHA loan.

Those with an FHA loan, in fact, can put down as low as 3.5 percent of the total purchase price to purchase a home. To qualify for an FHA loan, homeowners also don’t need to have a high credit score. However, FHA loans do have a few downsides associated with them that homebuyers need to consider.

First of all, an FHA loan can only be used to buy a primary residence – not an investment property or secondary residence. Second, high mortgage insurance premiums must be paid by homebuyers, which can increase the cost of their mortgages.

VA Loans – Another good alternative to conventional mortgages is the VA loan. However, in order to qualify for this type of loan, homeowners must either be active members or veterans of the United States military. Service members who do qualify are able to get a mortgage without being required to pay mortgage insurance or make a down payment.

Bankrate.com reports that closing costs frequently are paid by the seller and are capped. Although VA loans are a very affordable alternative to conventional mortgages, there are also a few downsides associated with them. To begin with, there are a limited number of buyers who are able to qualify for this kind of home loan.

Second, there are also restrictions on the kinds of properties that you can buy with a VA loan. For example, this type of loan cannot be used to buy rental properties. Third, homebuyers who buy a house using a VA loan are charged a funding fee, that can range from 1.25 percent up to 3.3 percent of the total amount that is borrowed.

USDA loans – This type of loan is for low-income homebuyers who want to buy a property that is located in specific designated rural areas. Before applying for a USDA loan, a homebuyer will need to check to see whether the address qualifies as one of the rural areas. USDA loans have low-interest rates and do not require high credit scores or a down payment.

However, the drawback is that borrowers need to be low or moderate-income earners. The benefits of this type of loan also vary depending on the amount of money the borrower earns. Homebuyers also can only qualify for this type of loan when the house that they want to buy is in a designated rural area according to the USDA.

4. Fixed-Rate Mortgage

For those homebuyers who prefer predictability and stability, the best option is probably a fixed-rate mortgage. Those who opt for a fixed-rate home loan will be paying the same mortgage payment each month over the entire life of their loan, no matter what the current interest rates are or how much they increase or decrease.

Typically, a fixed-rate loan has a lifetime of 30, 20, or 15 years. For homeowners with a fixed-rate mortgage, knowing that their mortgage payments each month will always be the same allows them to be able to budget their expenses based on this.

However, it can also make it a slow process to build equity in their homes. Typically, interest rates are also higher on fixed-rate mortgages. That is why a fixed-rate mortgage might not be the best fit for borrowers who are not planning on staying in their houses for a very long time.

5. Adjustable-Rate Mortgage

An adjustable-rate mortgage, or ARM, offers loans with non-fixed interest rates. The rate instead changes and fluctuates based on the current market conditions. That means that homeowners who have an ARM loan might have lower monthly mortgage payments over a certain time period.

However, after a certain period of time, those monthly payments are subject to change, which makes them unpredictable for homeowners who are planning to stay in their houses over a long time period. For example, homeowners who have a 5/1 ARM might have a great interest rate for five years but then their monthly rate might increase each subsequent year based on the current market conditions.

Business

5 Mistakes To Avoid If You Are Going To Self-publish Your Book

To help you address any potential questions you may have, we’ve put together a list of 5 mistakes to avoid if you’re going to self-publish your book.

Published

7 days ago

September 25, 2023

TwinzTech

5 Mistakes To Avoid If You Are Going To Self-publish Your Book

Self-publishing your book essentially means being your own editor, designer, proofreader, and marketer, not to mention the fact that you also have to write your book. There are many tasks and it will be the first time you face any of them.

For many first-time authors, this process can seem a little overwhelming. After all, how can you be sure you’re on the right track to making your book a success? To help you address any potential questions you may have, we’ve put together a list of 5 mistakes to avoid if you’re going to self-publish your book.

Table of Contents

1. “What matters is the inside”

Well, you’re not wrong. Content is king, and it will be what determines the long-term success of your book. However, we often see that authors who make this their mantra end up severely neglecting the more superficial but vitally important elements such as book writing service, formatting, and well-written descriptions. The irony is that if you don’t put effort into the outside of your book, people will never see the inside. It’s really a bit like going on a date, what’s important is the inside, but you have to fix the outside so that people are curious about the important things.

You may not have all the necessary skills in your pipeline, but it is definitely possible to self-publish a professional-quality book (both in terms of content and exterior) without necessarily having any experience. We’ll tell you more throughout this article, and of course, you can always browse our Help Center and blog for more tips, tricks, and guides for self-publishing your book.

2. Ignore criticism and/or comments

One of the best things about self-publishing your book is that you have the freedom to write about topics that tend not to have been explored in mainstream literature. Many publishers do not dare to touch on these topics for fear of not getting a return on investment or because they are niche genres with few but very passionate fans. This can sometimes lead authors to be a little overprotective of their ideas and dismiss any criticism or comments, constructive or otherwise, usually to the detriment of the final product.

Don’t get us wrong here: we’re not saying you should sell out or compromise your creative identity. If you’re not happy with the book, there’s no point in writing it in the first place. However, self-publishing also means self-publishing (for the most part), and that requires a certain objective perspective. That’s why we always recommend that at least two people you trust to read and comment on your work before publishing it.

This is especially true if you want to sell your books once you’ve published them. Getting a couple of people to read and review your book before publication can help eliminate some of the errors you may have missed, plot holes, or undesirable story elements.

3. “My target audience is everyone”

We hear this a lot. There seems to be some widespread misunderstanding about the topic of the target audience, what it is for, and why it is important.

First, let’s eliminate the most common misconception: having a target audience does not mean that said audience is the only one who will buy your book. If you define your target audience as young adults between the ages of 15 and 20, it doesn’t mean you’re actively discouraging people outside that age range from buying your book.

All it means is that you are adapting your writing, your themes, and the aesthetics of your book to make it more appealing to your chosen demographic. It is to ensure thematic focus and aesthetic coherence in your work. This is important because it gives your book its identity.

Mistakes you should avoid if you are going to self-publish your book

4. Thinking that you don’t need marketing to self-publish your book

Marketing is usually one of the topics that authors who are going to self-publish their book have the most problems with. After all, most writers don’t want to become authors for the love of marketing. However, it is one of the essential components to the success of a self-published author.

Unfortunately, we often see writers who only make a token effort to promote their books, or worse, ignore it completely and think that interested readers will find it. While that may be the case for some of them, the vast majority of your potential readers won’t be able to find your book amid all the noise on the Internet these days. Plus, even if interested readers found your book on their own, do you really want to waste the opportunity to sell hundreds of copies with a well-designed marketing campaign?

If you don’t know anything about book marketing, we suggest you check out our guide on how to promote your book. We also have an article on our blog memoir ghostwriting services dedicated to book marketing on social media that you might also be interested in.

Don’t waste time and start promoting your book before its publication! Do some research on your target audience and choose communication channels accordingly. There are several different approaches you can take depending on the context, but the three articles mentioned above will help you get off on the right foot.

5. Assume that people don’t like your book

Sometimes, even if you have put all your soul and love into self-publishing your book, the sales of your works may not go as fast as you expected. Many writers mistakenly interpret this slow start as an indication that their book is a failure, universally hated by everyone, and then give up on writing.

It’s a shame when this happens because most of the time it takes very little to see almost instant improvements in sales numbers. So don’t give up! We are here to tell you that this is perfectly normal and that you should not feel defeated by it. Your book, in all likelihood, is not the problem here. Instead, the problem is often that people simply don’t know your book exists. If you read the previous points we covered in this article, you should already have a pretty good idea of what may have happened and what you can do to fix it.

Usually, the answer is that you need to spend more time and effort on marketing. However, it might be worth asking more people to give you feedback on your book, both in terms of the content and the cover, to see if there is anything you can change to make it more appealing to a wider audience. However, it’s not going to happen overnight, so don’t be discouraged by a slow start. Keep up the good work and spread the word!