For those who still have equity in your home and are thinking about consolidating dept here are some points to consider when paying off those credit cards and or fixed term loans such as a car loan or unsecured loan.  What ever you consolidate into the new loan is going to paid off in the loan term of the new loan, so if you had a car with 3 years left on the term and you refinanced to a new 30 year term that balance just got spread out over that same 30 years.  Now on the other hand your payment went down considerably and the the interest on the car payment that probably wasn’t tax deductible you might find yourself deducting it now with your mortgage interest deduction ( not accounting advise you need to talk to your accountant to determine how it would affect your tax situation).  Now when considering consolidating credit cards again there are points again to consider like the car the balance you consolidate into a new loan are again spread out over the term of the new loan.  Some big differences are that the fixed term on a loan being paid off is done paid in full, now with a credit you pay it off and you can use it again and again potentially running the balance up again with the unintended consequence of not helping but putting you even further in dept.  The only cure for this is SELF CONTROL, easy to say hard to do but if followed through  can put you back to the road to prosperity.  Another option of closing the account sounds good but can be bad for your credit score.  When you close a credit card account it hurts your credit score, a factor in determining the credit score is how much credit you have (credit limit) vs. how much credit you’ve used ( credit balance).  I’m not sure where the line falls some say when you get over 50 to 60% of used credit it can start to have a adverse impact on your score.  It’s hard to determine but it’s like this if you have credit cards that you have close to maxed out that’s not good and well hurt your score.  I think that if you can refinance out of a high interest rate to a lower rate you can’t lose, why pay 18%, 21%  or more in an interest rate when you can pay 5% .  I feel the goal should be to take some of the amount of money you would be saving because of the lower payment and start powering down on the saving account.  Here is a great tool for you to use to help determine how long it would take you to payoff a credit card CLICK HERE to go to this website.  For those of you who’s interest rate is over 21% it starts to get pretty scary on how long it would take you to payoff a credit card and the amount of interest you would the credit card company.

Now feel free to contact me if you would like an interest rate quote or CLICK HERE to go to my website and fill out a secure online loan application.  If you have more questions feel free to contact me and I’ll go over your situation to help you find the best solution for you goals.

Andrew Hahn Capital Advantage LLC a mortgage lending company

I am an independent mortgage broker with over 18 years experience in the mortgage industry.

This is not a website that’s a lead generating website that sells your information to other mortgage companies.

Here is the statement by all accounts a pretty boring statement with little change.  What we are going to have to wait and see is how in the up coming weeks when the Fed stops buying mortgage back securities is going to affect the mortgage interest rates.  They have made no movement towards continuing the program.

If your looking to purchase or refinance and want an interest rate quote please CLICK HERE

Andrew Hahn

Federal Open Market Committee Policy Statement
(Italics/highlight indicate material changes in wording from last statement)
Release Date: March 16, 2010
For immediate release
Information received since the Federal Open Market Committee met in January suggests that economic activity has continued to strengthen and that the labor market is stabilizing. Household spending is expanding at a moderate rate, but remains constrained by high unemployment, modest income growth, lower housing wealth, and tight credit. Business spending on equipment and software has risen significantly. However, investment in nonresidential structures is declining, housing starts have been flat at a depressed level, and employers remain reluctant to add to payrolls. While bank lending continues to contract, financial market conditions remain supportive of economic growth. Although the pace of economic recovery is likely to be moderate for a time, the Committee anticipates a gradual return to higher levels of resource utilization in a context of price stability.
With substantial resource slack continuing to restrain cost pressures and with longer-term inflation expectations stable, inflation is likely to be subdued for some time.
The Committee will maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent and continues to anticipate that economic conditions, including low rates of resource utilization, subdued inflation trends, and stable inflation expectations, are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period. To provide support to mortgage lending and housing markets and to improve overall conditions in private credit markets, the Federal Reserve has been purchasing $1.25 trillion of agency mortgage-backed securities, and about $175 billion of agency debt; those purchases are nearing completion, and the remaining transactions will be executed by the end of this month. The Committee will continue to monitor the economic outlook and financial developments and will employ its policy tools as necessary to promote economic recovery and price stability.
In light of improved functioning of financial markets, the Federal Reserve has been closing the special liquidity facilities that it created to support markets during the crisis. The only remaining such program, the Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, is scheduled to close on June 30 for loans backed by new-issue commercial mortgage-backed securities and March 31 for loans backed by all other types of collateral.
Voting for the FOMC monetary policy action were: Ben S. Bernanke, Chairman; William C. Dudley, Vice Chairman; James Bullard; Elizabeth A. Duke; Donald L. Kohn; Sandra Pianalto; Eric S Rosengren; Daniel K. Tarullo; Kevin M. Warsh. Voting against the policy action was Thomas M Hoenig, who believed that continuing to express the expectation of exceptionally low levels of the federal funds rate for an extended period was no longer warranted because it could lead to the buildup of financial imbalances and increase risks to longer-run macroeconomic and financial stability.

Sorry I haven’t blog for the past several weeks took a break. But getting back at it. Over the past month we seem to be in a pretty narrow range as far as interest rates are concerned. One day it looks as though they are going to start that trek upwards then something happens and they work their way back down. This month should show us how this spring might shape up. This is the month that the treasury is supposed to stop buying mortgage backed securities. There has been predictions that when this happens that interest rate could rise, those predictions range anywhere from up .40 basis points to up a full 1%. While there is still talk that the fed well have a difficult time withdrawing from purchasing mortgage securities at this time given the still very fragile housing industry.  Mortgage foreclosure are expected to get even worse than they are now. In 2009  as it was stated 2.8 million people came under the cloud of foreclosure and they are predicting that could rise  to 3 to 3.5 million in 2010 not good.  CLICK HERE to read further regarding the foreclosure rates.  All this while processing foreclosures has slowed down as banks try to deal with the continued flood of foreclosures.  SOME GOOD NEWS the program that i have been telling you all about the HARP Home Affordable Refinance Program has been extended for another year; it was slated to end June 15th 2010 but now has been extended until June 30 2011.  CLICK HERE to go to my website to see if you qualify.  We know the programs extended for another year but are the rates going to stay low?  Of coarse this won’t mean much If they don’t keep the rates down and if rates rise I feel it is going to really hurt those hoped home buying season as well; especially with the home buyers credit set to expire at the end of April (as it stands for now).  Now keep in mind with the tax credit  you have until the end of April to have a property under contract but have until the end of June to close on the property.  I’m sure that is going to be an interesting time for sellers who have buyers wanting concessions to execute those contracts; I’ll bet home inspections are going to get a lot more attention as far as getting the sellers to get the little stuff fixed or else.  Please visit my website www.capitaladvantagemortgage.com it’s complete with mortgage calculators comparisons and you can even shop through Real Estate listings. I just added a new listing by Pat Knapp CHECK IT OUT and here is a link to a video tour as well CLICK HERE . Please feel free to ask me any questions you may have, I’ll be bloggin at you again soon.

Remember to get pre-qualified visit my website or give me a call

Andrew Hahn