Monday, November 30th, 2009 at
11:56 pm
Many of you have huge databases and do a great job of keeping in touch with the contacts on your lists using frequent mailings.
If you are one of these people…Kudos to you! When maintained correctly, your database will provide a super source of mortgage referrals and new loans, keeping your pipeline filled for many years to come.
If you’re like me, you’re probably experiencing more and more pieces of your mailing being returned than when you first started mailing to your lists. You see things like “Undeliverable as addressed” or even “Forwarding Order Expired.”
Its unfortunate but, every time you mail to a contact that has moved or just can’t be found for some reason, you have just thrown good money down the drain. Not only did it cost you to produce the mailing piece…you also paid for the postage to send it. In all of this, here’s the really bad news…there is absolutely no possibility of getting any kind of response from those returns.
Now, if you’re relatively new to the mortgage business and/or maintain a very modest database of contacts this isn’t a problem for you. But, if you’ve been in the business for a number of years, your list may consist of many hundreds and possibly thousands of contacts.
When you have a huge list, you just can’t talk to everyone and take them to lunch. Most of them are contacts you have acquired over the years and you use direct mail to keep your name in front of them. You have found that by doing this, a goodly number of them call you when it’s mortgage time.
So…You maintain your database the best way you can by going into your list of names and delete the “returns” that you receive. No more bad addresses (until the next mailing), no more wasted mailers, and no more wasted postage. We also lost some contacts in the process that we worked so hard to get.
This just might be a better solution for you…
Our US Postal Service has an NCOA (National Change of Address) System that a limited number of companies are licensed to access. These companies or Service Providers are able to take your list and check it against the USPS address system.
By using this service, you’ll receive a report that will let you know if anyone on your list has moved, gone out of business, or even if the zip code that contact was in was changed by the Post Office itself. You’ll also receive a new copy of your list that has been cleaned, scrubbed, and updated.
The cost for having your list checked is extremely economical (about $5.00 per thousand records) and will allow you to keep getting your mortgage marketing message out to as many people on your list as possible.
The NCOA service is by far the easiest and most effective way that I have found to keep your marketing lists clean and your costs down. So, eliminate some of your list maintenance chores and save on your next mailing. When you’re ready to keep in touch, make your life easier and check your list.
By: Tom Domin
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Monday, November 30th, 2009 at
6:11 pm
A 100% home equity will allow you to borrow money from the value of your home that you can use for whatever you want. There are a number of uses for these loans and you can often receive lower interest rates than your credit cards, however the interest rate will generally be higher than your primary mortgage. A 100% home equity loan will allow you to borrow the complete value of your home.
There are some key documents that you will need to get approved for a 100% home equity loan. These documents include:
• The tax assessor’s home appraisal
• Your two most recent paycheck stubs from your employer
• Most recent mortgage statement
• The legal description of your property
• Current property insurance policy
• If you are self-employed, you will need to have your two most recent 1040 tax returns including all schedules
• W-2 or 1099 forms from the past 2 years
When you go to get approved for your home equity loan you will need to be prepared as to what additional costs may be involved. There is generally a fee for a property appraisal to estimate the value of your home. An application fee may or may not be refunded, especially if you are turned down due to bad credit. There are generally points that must be paid upfront. One point equals one percent of your credit limit. Closing costs may include attorney fees, title search, preparation, filing, property and title insurance and taxes.
Before you make your decision on your home equity loan you will need to include all of these costs into the loan and determine how much you are really going to be spending over the life of the loan. You may also want to consider shorter repayment periods, especially if you do not know how much longer you will be living in your home.
By: C.L. Haehl
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Sunday, November 29th, 2009 at
9:39 am
Mortgage cycling is a way home owners can use to try and pay off their mortgages early. By making extra payments and paying off your mortgage early you can save yourself many thousands of £s in interest payments.
The basic principle of mortgage cycling is to have a flexible mortgage where you are able to pay extra payments every 6 or 12 months to reduce the amount of the mortgage debt.
If you have a mortgage for £100,000 at an interest rate of 6%. You would be paying monthly payments of about £600. The total amount you would pay back on a 30 year mortgage would be £225,838. Of this £225,838, £115,838 is interest payments. In the early years of your mortgage a lot of the monthly payment is just for paying interest. You do little to reduce the actual amount of the loan. After a longer time period of paying the mortgage then a higher % of the monthly payments goes on paying the mortgage debt and less on paying interest payments
However if you were able to reduce the time period of paying back the debt. Then the total cost of the mortgage would be much lower. For example if you could pay the debt back in 20 years then the debt repayments would be only £71,943.
This is when mortgage cycling can be used to make additional payments to reduce the mortgage and pay it off early. Basically you make a commitment to pay a lump sum payment every 6 or 12 months to reduce the “principal” of your mortgage. (Principal here refers to the amount of debt that you have.) If you have the enough disposable income to pay this extra payment on top of your regular mortgage payments then it can be very beneficial. The difficulty is when you struggle to meet these extra demands. Some mortgage advisers suggest that it can actually work out better in the long run to take out personal loans, (secured against the value of your house) to make these payments if necessary. At first glance this doesn’t seem to make economic sense. The personal loan is likely to be at a higher rate of interest than your mortgage. However if these loans are just temporary to overcome cash flow difficulties then in the long run it can still save you money. This is because of the big savings that coming from paying off the mortgage early as illustrated in the above example.
To many this seems disadvantageous because it is risky and complicated. However if you are confident of being able to pay these loans off quickly mortgage cycling may save you money in the long term.
It also depends how keen you are to pay off your mortgage early. It is worth remembering that if you make mortgage payments of £600 a month then this may be a high % of your salary at the moment. But in 10 or 15 years, assuming inflation and real wages rise, then this £600 will become a smaller % of your income. Therefore it becomes easier to pay extra in a few years, rather than putting pressure on yourself at the start of a big mortgage.
By: Richard Pettinger
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