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If you were to ask 100 women “What would you like to achieve financially?” Buying a home or apartment is usually one of the answers. Some women think that they can never own a home - which is not true! In fact, there are so many success stories of home buyers who never thought they would get there. In addition, homeowners tend to have greater financial success in the other areas of their finances life. I’ve seen it over and over.

The benefits of owning a home include: building equity, saving money on taxes and an integral step towards building wealth. With interest rates so low, this is a great environment to buy a home. This article is a checklist with tips and guidelines to buying a home. If you already own a home, some of these tips will be helpful for refinancing your home. Real estate is not a substitute for stocks but it plays a big part in your financial fitness.

1) CHECK YOUR CREDIT. Get a recent a copy of your credit report, especially your FICO score (the score lenders use to determine your interest rate). Check out www.myfico.com.

2) HOW MUCH HOME CAN YOU AFFORD? Start with your monthly payment and plug it into a mortgage calculator. (Great one on www.eloan.com: Affordability Calculator). This site tells you how much home you can afford assuming certain numbers. For example, if you make $6,000 per month before taxes, you can afford anywhere from $125,000 to $345,000 assuming $25,000 as a down payment. There are different choices with the actual monthly payments. If you don’t have enough saved for a down payment, create a separate savings account and come up with a savings schedule. Only borrow what you can afford!!!

3) ORGANIZE YOUR DOCUMENTS. Get together the following documentation: past 3 years of tax returns, recent paychecks, bank statements, investment statements and all other financial statements.

4) WHICH MORTGAGE IS THE BEST FOR YOU? Understand the different mortgage options. Most are based on a 30-year amortization cycle: fixed-rate, adjustable and a hybrid. Hybrids are very popular now; fixed rate for a certain amount of time and then they adjust annually. Consider a 15- or 20-year fixed rate mortgage. The payments will be a bit higher, but you will end up paying much less interest over the course of the mortgage and be debt-free much sooner!

5) SHOULD YOU PAY POINTS? A point is equal to 1% of your loan amount. You pay a point to receive a lower interest rate on your loan. If you get a low enough rate, paying points can be worth it.

6) SHOP AROUND. Work with a mortgage broker or check out a few mortgage websites: www.e-loan.com, www.bankrate.com

7) PRE-APPROVAL 6 MONTHS BEFORE BUYING A HOME. Get pre-approved for a loan from the bank or your mortgage broker. It gets the process going faster and in a competitive market, it gives you the edge.

MINIMIZE YOUR DEBT. Avoid big-ticket purchases so not to add to your debt load.

9) SAVE MONEY ON TAXES. Points paid for a first-time home (not for refinancing) can be deducted in the year your home was closed.

10) BE CAREFUL OF COSTS. Don’t ignore transaction costs and watch closing costs very carefully. There are also many hidden costs of home buying: moving, minor renovations (especially if you are buying an older home). Make sure you are prepared.

11) DIVERSIFY, DIVERSIFY, DIVERSIFY. Don’t tie up all your assets in your home.

12) PAY YOUR MORTGAGE AUTOMATICALLY. Get it taken from bank account automatically every month. You don’t ruin your credit and don’t forget to pay every month on time.

13) REFINANCING?

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If you’re starting up a business, it can be hard to grasp the terminology you need in order to speak to your bank about funds; when it comes to discussing asset and sales finance, for instance, things can get tricky. It is, firstly, important to know what asset and sales finance is: a service through which banks help businesses obtain a range of equipment, including plant and machinery, commercial vehicles, IT equipment, office furniture and cars. Essentially, sales financing will help you get quick access to cash, while asset financing will help fund business equipment.

Many banks offer several cost-effective and expedient sales financing solutions; and with such solutions, businesses can find enough working capital to be able to operate. Two sales financing solutions are factoring and invoice discounting. With factoring (recourse and non-recourse),up to 95% of the value of approved invoices can be advanced within a given period of time with the balance being paid on receipt. And while invoice discounting (also recourse and non-recourse) functions in a similar way, there is a crucial difference between the two: in factoring, the client’s customers are made aware of the bank’s involvement with the business; in invoice discounting they are not.

Another method of sales financing used by many banks is stock finance; this allows you to release as much as 60% of the funds tied up in eligible stock through a completely flexible system. This will release finance that is usually not available for working capital needs.

Asset financing solutions will help you gain assets in an economical way, without eating into your cash reserves. As with sales financing, banks will often offer a range of asset finance solutions to its business customers. Hire Purchase, for example, can help you acquire the asset you need right away, but payments can be spread across the life of the asset in question. This may also allow you to keep the asset at the end of your term for a particular fee. Operating Lease asset finance will allow you to benefit from a particular asset, while the bank itself takes on the risk of losing its value; the rental and return conditions for the asset are fixed at the outset.

Many banks will offer a variety of asset finance products that cover the needs of a wide range of businesses, be they technological or agricultural. Barclays Asset and Sales Finance, for instance, offer a Technology Lease asset finance product to help finance your technology needs, as well as an Agricultural Lease, which offers finance to buy machinery, vehicles and land, as well as many other benefits. So if you’re planning to start up a business, or you run an established business in need of asset and sales financing products, check out your bank’s asset and sales financing solutions to see what difference they can make.

Author John Blonn

John’s Website: PR Sending

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It may not be surprising to know that the $84,454 is the average household’s personal debt in the United States. Even though you may have more or less than the statistical average, it may be comforting to know that you regardless of your financial situation can get out of debt before your debt goes further.

Pinpoint your spending habits to guide to help you realize what has damaged your personal finance. For many people it is simple just spending too much money, for others it might a combination of bad time, student loans, etc. Whatever your current financial situation you must be able to stop doing wrong before you can start healing your credit and finances. A few examples are

Spending to much Money on Entertainment
Spending to much than your making
Cable Internet/TV
Eating out

“If you have to use your credit card you probably can’t afford it”. Credit Cards are some of the healthiest businesses in American earning billions of dollars in revenue yearly. Why? People spend too much money and get in debt to quickly in their youth. First identify if you are on of these persons. Do you have more than two credit cards? How often do you use your credit card? What is your interest rate? How much do you own on your credit cards? Do you pay your credit card off with another credit card?

Please realize that the last question, paying off your credit card is an absolute no-no. You are basically paying off one debt for an even bigger one. Most people have a lot more than two credit cards, but why? You can only use one at a time? Or are you buying more than you can actually afford? The key to get out of debt is to cut your spending and save 10% of your take home pay, which you use to pay off your debts.

Get out of Debt

In order to be financial free of debt you need to stop spending and you need to get lower interest rates. You need to finance your debt into a debt consolidation loan, or refinance your home loan. This is the normal situation for most of us; however loan options will differ on individuals. Say you’re paying 15% interest rate on your credit card, which is low for most. Lets also that you have the average $8,000 in credit card debt (National Average). Lets also say you have an additional $20,000 in student loans, personal loans, etc at a rate of 5% annually.(Not including mortgage, or car loans). If you were to get a debt consolidation loan, which offers you a loan to pay back your current debts normally at a lower interest rate you would be saving money in interest payments.

Accelerating your Finances

Now to really get out of debt, you need to apply the first rule. Cut 10% of your take spending right off the top. Lets say you take home $1,800/Month (after taxes, etc). Most would be going to see movies, going on dates, eating out, buying clothes. Well if you can manage your personal finance and save that extra $180/Month, and you put that toward your debt consolidation loan. You will be financially free two-to- three times faster, and have saved thousands in interest payments than if you just paid of the debt consolidation loan minimum payment.

This Article is brought to you by FinanceRating.com - Personal Finance Comparison. FinanceRating is a directory and resource center for individuals concerned about their Finance wishing to improve their current financial situation. Pages/resources from credit cards and banking to mutual funds and more.
http://www.FinanceRating.com

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