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Home or Investment Property Equity: Be Sure the Bank Gives You All that You Deserve


Home equity is your own personal money machine. If you want financial freedom, a home equity loan is probably the best way to achieve it. You can pay down credit cards, pay off cars, both at high interest rates, or you can actually use your home equity to invest and build the money into a fortune. The biggest problem people run into with home equity is that they don't have enough of it. Sometimes, the problem may be with your bank and not with your equity.

In order to know how much equity you have in your home, you must first know what you owe on your mortgage and then how much your home is worth. Here's the secret to getting the most equity out of your home or investment property. Let's say you own $100,000 on your home or investment property, and you believe it is valued at $150,000. If a bank will loan 90 percent of the value, they'll give you $135,000 minus what you owe, or a $35,000 equity loan.

But wait just a minute. Let's suppose the bank tells you that they believe your home is valued at $130,000. Now, they'll give you a home equity loan of just $17,000 (117k minus the 100k that you owe). That's a whopping 18k less than what you thought you were getting.

The answer? Educate your lender. This happened to me recently. The lender had my home valued at $15,000 less than I said it was. So, instead of giving up on my home equity loan, I simply educated the lender. I explained that I $25,000 in simple appreciation, based on the 4 percent that homes in my neighborhood receive. Then, I said I had $12,000 worth of improvements in the past two years. Finally, I asked for a complete appraisal, instead of the recent sales in the neighborhood that the bank was using. Now, this increased my closing costs a bit, but it was well worth it. In fact, a couple of days later, the lender called to inform me that the full appraisal came in $7,000 higher than the number I gave them. Now my equity loan was even bigger than I had originally hoped - 90 percent of 7k gave me an additional $6,300!

You see, our instinct is to always trust that the lenders and mortgage brokers know more than we do. In many cases, this is not true.

Mark Barnes is an investment real estate and real estate finance expert. Get his free mortgage finance course at http://www.winningthemortgagegame.com. Mark is also the author of the new novel, The League, a shocking, sports-related conspiracy. Learn more about his suspense thriller at http://www.sportsnovels.com.


MORE RESOURCES:

Housing Wire

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MonitorBankRates.com

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Mortgage refinance rates on 30 year conforming home loans are averaging 3.98%, unchanged from yesterday's average 30 year mortgage refinance rate. Mortgage refinance rates today on 15 year home mortgage loans are averaging 3.29%, down from yesterday's ...

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Fox News

Obama Proposes Mortgage-Refinance Plan
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By NICK TIMIRAOS President Barack Obama called on Congress during Tuesday's State of the Union address to approve new legislation that would give all homeowners who are current on their mortgages the opportunity to refinance at record low mortgage ...
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International Business Times

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And he aimed a pitch at homeowners, announcing a new mortgage refinance program with "historically low interest rates" that "gives every responsible homeowner the chance to save about $3000 a year on their mortgage." He added, "A small fee on the ...
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CBS Local

Six Questions on Obama's Mortgage Refinance Proposal
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By Nick Timiraos President Barack Obama said Tuesday night in his State of the Union address that he would send a plan to Congress to allow all homeowners who are current on their mortgages to refinance. Here's a quick look at the proposal: How is this ...
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Anchor Bancorp Wisconsin Inc. Announces Third Quarter Results
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Revenues in the quarter ending September 30, 2011, were unfavorably impacted by a $5.1 million impairment charge on the capitalized mortgage servicing rights asset due to lower interest rates and the resultant mortgage refinance activity.

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KOMO News

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If you buy apparel from "big and tall" clothing stores, you're used to paying more and having less to choose from. "Regular guys," on the other hand, benefit from a wider selection of products and more competition between retailers.
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AgedLeadStore.com to Add 1100000 Aged Mortgage Refinance Leads
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COM, January 26, 2012 ) Baltimore, MD AgedLeadStore.com is increasing its value for its customers by adding 1.1 million aged Mortgage Refinance Leads in February. This is important as many people depend upon their ability to refinance to make progress ...



High Volume Stock Movers: Bank of America, Sprint, Cisco, Annaly, Sirius Feb. 8th
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By Derek Hoffman Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC): The US's Home Affordable Refinance Program has increased mortgage refinance applications and strained capacity at Bank of America, leading the bank to ask some customers to wait 60 to 90 days, ...



New HARP Could Help Up to 6.7 Million
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Other changes to the program were designed to make it easier for homeowners with private mortgage insurance (PMI) to refinance or to obtain a HARP mortgage refinance with a lender other than their current mortgage servicer. In addition, new limits were ...

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