6 Smart Tips for Securing a Mortgage

Snagging a great loan and setting yourself up for a smooth trip on the home buying journey doesn’t happen by accident.

As with most big decisions, you have to take small steps to start. When you’re looking for a mortgage, here are six smart tips to get you started on the right track.

Tip #1: Budget Wisely

Knowing the type of home and mortgage you can afford is all about budgeting. Search around for the kind of home you want in your area and compare prices to get a ballpark figure. Figure out the following for creating your budget:

• Income
• Monthly debts
• Estimated cost of living expenses
• Amount saved for a down payment

Then head on over to realtor.com®’s online mortgage calculator to get a feel for how much your monthly payments might be. Tinker with the interest rate a little bit to see how that can change and compare to the money you pull in each month.

To avoid a cash crunch, your mortgage payment shouldn’t exceed 43% of your monthly income.

Tip #2: Decide on a Mortgage Type

The type of home you want and any assistance you need will decide what type of loanyou’re eligible for. As an example, do you meet any of the following qualifications?

• A military veteran? Consider a Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) loan.
• A first time homebuyer with good credit? Consider a first-time homebuyer loan via the Federal Housing Authority (FHA). FHA loans require only a 3.5% down payment and typically come with good interest rates.
• Looking for a mansion? For really expensive homes—you might want a jumbo loan.

Tip #3: Mortgage Broker or Lender?

There are two ways to find a loan: dealing directly with the lender or seeking some help from a mortgage broker.

If you go the solo route, you have to do all the legwork and shop for a loan—which includes going from lender to lender, comparing interest rates and other loan terms.

If you enlist a mortgage broker, they do the legwork and will work with you to figure out which loan best fits your needs. But they typically charge 1% to 2% of the loan amount.

If you’re into research and tracking down information, by all means go solo. However, if the process seems too daunting or confusing, you might want to find a good mortgage broker.

Tip #4: Check Your Credit

Now’s the time to check your credit report for blemishes.

If you see something that doesn’t look right, ask to have it removed.

By law, you can obtain one free credit report from each credit report company—TransUnion, Equifax and Experian—per year. Go to annualcreditreport.com to get yours.

More here. 

10 Garden Hacks for Under $20

Ready to grow a green thumb this spring? Gardening, when it’s done right, can be a great way to save money. Just imagine if you could grow all your own tomatoes for the summer without spending a fortune. With these 10 tips, you just might!

1. Choose the right plants.

An unsuccessful garden often stems from choosing the wrong plants. If you don’t want to dump loads of money into your garden, choose the right fruits and veggies for your area. Hardy varieties suited to your soil and climate will make the rest of the process a breeze.

Cost: Free! You’re going to buy plants anyway, so you might as well buy the right ones to start.

2. Start veggies from seed.

Starting seeds indoors is difficult. However, plenty of veggies and fruits are easy to direct sow. Just prepare your soil, put the seeds in at the right time and watch them go. Some easy options to direct sow include corn, carrots, zucchini, turnips, beets, radishes and leafy greens.

Cost: 50 cents to $1 per seed packet

3. Try containers.

If you’re new to gardening or don’t have a lot of space or time to invest, consider a container garden. You can use old containers, or pick them up for a couple bucks at your local dollar store. Add in a 1:1:1 blend of compost, vermiculite and peat moss for a rich DIY potting soil, and go to town.

Cost: Less than $5 for a container. Small bags of vermiculite, compost and peat moss can be found for under $10 each and should fill a few containers.

4. Make your own compost bin.

Compost is one of the best ways to boost your garden’s fertility. It’s a great fertilizer for any garden, it’s easy to make and you don’t even need a fancy compost bin.

If you have a large backyard, you can make a compost pile for free. Just pile up roughly equal volumes of acceptable food scraps (read: no meats, bones or dairy) with yard waste (leaves, weeds, lawn clippings). Turn it over once in a while, and it will become compost.

In a smaller space, you can make a simple trash can compost bin.

Cost: Free to $20

5. Use cattle fencing for vining produce.

You can buy a 2-foot by 6-foot piece of cattle fencing – a raw steel wire grid – for about $20. You can turn it into an arch, or clip the piece in half and zip-tie the top to create a narrow V. Either option is great for trying tomatoes, beans, melons and other vining produce. The fence is sturdier than traditional tomato cages, and it lets you use your garden space more efficiently.

Cost: $20 or less

More here.

Tips from Key Mortgage: 6 risky ways to pay off credit card debt

YOU MAY BE SURPRISED!

Not long after your plane lands, the realization sets in that you got into the vacation spending spirit a little too much while you were away.

What’s the best way to get out of the red? You could forgo little luxuries, such as paring down to basic cable and bagging lunch instead of dining out, and direct the extra cash to trim the debt.

You could also pay more than the minimum payment each month, and attack the credit card balance with the highest interest rate first. After several months of sacrifice, the credit card debt would be conquered, and life would resume as before.

But just like losing weight, there are shortcuts you don’t want to take to pay off credit card debt. Bankrate outlines six of them. More here.

10 Tips for Finding the Best Deal on Your Mortgage

Most people will need a mortgage to buy a home. That means that not only do you need to shop for a home, you need to shop for a home loan. But a survey of 2013 borrowers by the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau found that almost half of borrowers didn’t shop around before settling on a mortgage.

They should. In fact, you may find more loans to choose from than you do houses.

“Definitely shop around,” says Valentin Saportas, CEO and co-founder of MortgageHippo, a Chicago-based online mortgage application service that links buyers with mortgage brokers. “Don’t just go with the first option that you get. Being able to save even a little bit of money in your monthly payment definitely adds up.” More here.

Mortgage rates rise, even in a weak economy

Mortgage rates increased this week as yields on government bonds spiked. Still, rates will likely stay low down the road as an economy recovering from a severe winter keeps the Federal Reserve from raising interest rates too soon.

Housing picture mixed

After last week’s good housing data, the state of the home market looked more conflicted this week. New home sales disappointed in March, falling 11.4 percent, while the volume of mortgage applications fell 2.3 percent last week from the previous one, according to the National Mortgage Bankers Association. That included a 4 percent decline in refinances and a flat reading on purchase applications.

Those downbeat reports were balanced out by Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller Home Price Index on April 28, which showed values in 20 cities increased in February 0.9 percent month over month (seasonally adjusted) and 5 percent year over year (non-seasonally adjusted). Pending home sales for April edged up 1.1 percent, the third straight month of increases, according to an April 29 report from the National Association of Realtors. More here.

Mortgages Are Getting Easier to Land, but Home Ownership Lags

Lending restrictions relaxed in 2014, allowing would-be homebuyers to more easily secure a mortgage, according to a report issued Thursday by Zillow real estate database. But landing a loan to buy a home today isn’t nearly as easy as it was before the housing bubble burst.

Zillow’s Mortgage Access Index released Thursday serves as an indicator of how easy or difficult it is for potential homebuyers to acquire a mortgage. The index shed about 3 percent between the third and the fourth quarter of 2014 but was ultimately up almost 36 percent year over year.

“We saw essentially a pause in the pace of the improvement of credit conditions, where we have seen really remarkable recovery in credit conditions since their low point in 2010,” says Stan Humphries, chief economist at Zillow. “It is extremely unlikely that we’ll get back to the credit conditions that prevailed in the 2004 to 2007 period of time, but that’s probably a good thing. I think most analysts agree at this point that credit conditions were too loose at that point in time.” More here.

FICO Program Gives Consumers Easy Access to Credit Info

Following suggestions from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), millions of consumers will now have access to the FICO Scores and credit reports that nonprofit credit counselors purchase on their behalf, FICO (NYSE: FICO) announced Tuesday.

The software company’s newly expanded FICO Score Open Access for Credit & Financial Counseling program will allow millions of people who receive nonprofit credit counseling, housing counseling and other services to receive a free copy of the FICO Score that these organizations have purchased.

In addition, FICO has created content to help these consumers understand the key factors that influence their credit scores.

At the same time, Experian, one of FICO’s credit bureau partners, has agreed to allow qualified credit counselors to share Experian credit reports with their clients, providing additional information to consumers who are struggling financially.

Until now, counseling organizations have generally been prohibited by their contracts with the credit reporting agencies from giving the consumer the credit report or score that they have purchased on that consumer’s behalf, the CFPB noted in a statement about FICO’s announcement.

These reports and scores, however, “help counselors engage in constructive conversations with their clients about steps the clients can take to improve their financial situation,” the agency said.

As part of its ongoing efforts, the CFPB brought counseling organizations’ concerns about restrictions on their clients’ access to credit information to the attention of the credit reporting companies and FICO, and urged that these restrictions be removed. More here.

CoreLogic: National Foreclosure Inventory Dwindles

National foreclosure inventory continues to shrink, falling 27.3% year over year in February, according to new data from CoreLogic.

In February of this year foreclosure inventory comprised about 553,000 homes, or 1.4% of all homes with a mortgage, down from 761,000, or 1.9%, in February 2014, data show. The latest numbers mark 40 months of continuous year-over-year declines in the foreclosure inventory, including 25 straight months of declines greater than 20%.

“Also in February 2015, the 12-month sum of completed foreclosures continued to decline, dropping by 16.1% from February 2014 to 550,000,” CoreLogic says in a statement. “The seriously delinquent inventory fell to 1.5 million loans, a 19.3% year-over-year decline.” More here. 

Smart Ways to Trim Your Water Bill This Spring

Water bills can fluctuate quite a bit throughout the year and tend to peak during the summer when people water their lawns, turn up air-conditioning systems that use water, wash cars and even fill swimming pools. The good news is that there are reliable ways to reduce your water consumption, which in turn means lowering your expenses. As an added bonus, using less water also means reducing your energy consumption and lessening your environmental footprint.

Here are some tips to reduce your water consumption – and save on that monthly bill, even when the weather heats up:

1. Fix leaky toilets.

The average household can leak more than 10,000 gallons of water each year, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, and much of that water escapes through toilets.If you hear yours running, then try to fix it yourself or call a plumber. (If you rent, let the landlord know.) Likewise, keep an eye out for slow drips coming out of sinks or pipes. Not only can they cause water damage, but they mean more wasted water.

2. Use your toilet properly.

People often end up wasting water by flushing their toilets more than necessary or even using their toilets as a garbage bin. Tissues and other items belong in the trash, not the toilet. Extra flushes and clogged drains end up wasting water. Another option is to stick a plastic bottle weighted down with sand or pebbles in the back of your toilet, so it uses less water.

3. Look for WaterSense labels.

WaterSense is the EPA-sanctioned label that lets consumers know that a product meets certain requirements. Specifically, WaterSense-labeled items are 20 percent more water efficient than average and lead to reduced water consumption. You can find the label on products from showerheads and toilets to faucets, or read more at epa.gov/WaterSense. (You can also follow the program on Twitter at @EPAwatersense.)

4. Skip the lawn.

In drier parts of the country, homeowners can spend over half of their water use on keeping their lawns and gardens moist. If you think about it, that represents a massive inefficiency​: Lawns and gardens don’t need daily sprinkler runs to thrive. Instead, try to get the most out of rain ​by collecting it or just let the lawn get a little brown during dry spells. Stick with native vegetation that doesn’t struggle to survive in drier climates. Adding mulch can also help. More here.