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If you are in the market for a new mortgage you might feel overwhelmed by all the options available to you. Should you try a mortgage broker or shop for a mortgage on your own? Here is what you need to know about mortgage brokers.

Mortgage loans are easily the most intimidating aspect of home ownership. If you neglect to do your homework before taking out a mortgage loan you could easily overpay thousands of dollars for your home. You don’t need to be a financial wizard to avoid making mistakes when it comes to your mortgage; you simply need to do your homework and research lenders before applying.

Some homeowners have neither the time nor the desire to research mortgage lenders. If this is you, a mortgage broker may be able to help you find the right mortgage loan. A mortgage broker is an independent agent that is paid on a commission basis for referring your business to a mortgage lender. It is important to remember that this individual is paid by commission and does not necessarily have your best interests at heart.

Mortgage brokers have access to a wide variety of mortgage lenders and may be able to place you with loan offers that you would not find on your own. This is especially true if you have special borrowing needs such as a poor credit rating.
You need to be very careful when using a mortgage broker; read all of the fine print and never sign blank or incomplete documents. Pay close attention to all fees associated with loan offers from the broker. Ask your mortgage broker what the fees, commissions, and any bonuses they receive from your loan are.

Your mortgage broker should provide you with a number of mortgage offers to choose from. Ask them to carefully explain all aspects of these loan offers, not just the interest rates. To learn more about finding the best mortgage without being taken advantage of by your mortgage broker, register for a free mortgage guidebook.

To get your free mortgage guidebook visit RefiAdvisor.com using the link below.

Louie Latour specializes in showing homeowners how to avoid common mortgage mistakes and predatory lenders. For a free copy of “Mortgage Refinancing – What You Need to Know,” which teaches strategies to find the best mortgage and save thousands of dollars in the process, visit Refiadvisor.com.

Claim your free guidebook today at: http://www.refiadvisor.com

Chicago Mortgage Refinance

In Texas and many other parts of the country, senior citizens are being squeezed. They receive, on average, $965 per month in social security. And, while property taxes vary, a senior in many Texas cities with a home valued at $100,000 will pay more than $200 per month in property taxes alone. Add to that the high cost of necessities like health care, prescription medicine, utilities, and mortgage payments, and the financial picture can be very bleak. It’s no wonder that many seniors face foreclosure or tax liens on their homes.

“Reverse mortgages are important to Texas seniors because they allow them to obtain a loan against the equity in their homeoften their single largest assetwithout making monthly payments to repay that loan. That means that with a government-insured reverse mortgage, a senior will never lose his or her home to a bank simply because he or she could not make a payment,” said Craig Castle, a San Antonio reverse mortgage specialist for the past four years.

So why don’t more Texas seniors take advantage of this financial product?

Castle says that in his experience, seniors shy away from reverse mortgages for three reasons:

• 1. Fear
• 2. Bad advice
• 3. The availability of other, more well-advertised, loan products

“I have had many clients elect not to complete the reverse mortgage process because of fear,” Castle says. “Usually, the additional cash could have improved their lives significantly.”

Seniors’ fear is not unfounded. They are often the targets of scams and fraud. But, reverse mortgages have one important safe-guard built into them to protect even those who are uncomfortable making financial decisions. In order to obtain a government-insured reverse mortgage, a senior must have counseling by a HUD counselor with the local housing authority or the Consumer Credit Counseling Office. This unbiased person can help the senior determine whether a reverse mortgage makes sense for his or her individual situation.

And, sometimes well-meaning family and friends give bad advice.

“I have had ministers tell clients that they heard that you could lose your home with a reverse mortgage,” Castle said. “It isn’t true, but advice isn’t always based on facts.”

The availability of home equity loans also clouds the picture for many seniors. “Home equity loans can be appropriate for people who have an income, but they often spell disaster for seniors,” Castle said. “I talk to potential clients every week who tell me that they are having problems keeping up with their payments.”

“My experience has been that most home equity clients who are over 65 and have taken the maximum 80% of their home value will eventually lose their houseif they live at least 3-5 years beyond the date of loan origination,” Castle added.

With a reverse mortgage, the homeowner can access from 40-60% of the appraised value of their home, but the loan is not repaid until they die or leave the home permanently. Then the home is sold and the proceeds are used to repay the loan, with any remainder going to the owner’s estate.

To find out more about the benefits and requirements for a reverse mortgage, visit www.SouthTexasReverseMortgage.com and request the free Federal Trade Commission publication, Facts for Seniors about Reverse Mortgages. Or call Castle at 210-789-3685.

“Misinformation has prevented many seniors from getting a reverse mortgage when it would have provided them with greater financial stabilityand peace of mind. That’s why I like to have the family involved and why I often spend several hours at my clients’ home explaining and re-explaining how a reverse mortgage works and how the various pay-out options can make their lives better,” Castle said.

Craig Castle is a Reverse Mortgage Specialist with Financial Freedom in San Antonio and the South Texas area. He holds a BA in Economics from the University of Missouri, is a former Licensed Stock Broker, and has worked with reverse mortgages for the past four years. He is also chairman of the Not Forgotten Coalition, a not-for-profit organization that provides services and advocacy for senior citizens in San Antonio. For more information, visit http://www.SouthTexasReverseMortgage.com or phone 210-789-3685.

After you scraped together a modest deposit for your new home you may think you’re home and dry. Think again. On top of there’s the surveyors and solicitors to pay. Then the government want a slice. You’ve got to pay stamp duty at 1% of the property’s price (if the house costs more than £250,000 the rate of stamp duty increases – see the information at the foot of this article). Phew! You’re lucky you’ll just make it – you’ll be a homeowner at last!

Then out of the blue the mortgage lender sends you a new bill – another £1,500 please Sir. They’ve called it a Higher lending Charge (HLC) and it’s charged if you borrow more than 90% of the value of the house. About 75% of all mortgage lenders charge it and £1,500 is about the average they ask for.

And guess what – they money you pay won’t benefit you in any way whatsoever! Not one jot. You’re being charged for a form of protection insurance that protects the mortgage lender, not you. The HLC pays the lender if you default on your mortgage, your property has to be repossessed and the sale proceeds are less than the outstanding balance on your mortgage. In theory the HLC then pays out the shortfall to the lender but in practice many lenders carry the risk themselves so the HLC is just an extra fee to offset a higher lending risk.

But an HLC doesn’t let you off the hook! If your home is repossessed and there’s a shortfall, you still have to pay the shortfall back to your lender – they’re sure to chase you for the money.

Whilst most of the lenders who charge HLC’s will readily agree to add the charge to your mortgage, that’s little consolation. In any case this means that you’ll end up paying interest on top of the charge. Then, over a 25-year term, your HLC will have cost you closer to £2,700!

In our opinion HLC’s should have died out with the dinosaurs. If a lender is worried you’ll default, they shouldn’t have lent the money in the first place. And with all today’s hi-tec credit checks and the risk based assessments used to process your application, you’d think the lenders were doing enough to protect themselves. In any case you may also end up paying a small interest premium for a 90% plus mortgage – so in practice you’re being charged twice for the same risk!

The Nationwide Building Society, who incidentally do not charge HLC’s, recently reported that during the last five years £1 billion has been charged in HLC’s by some 800,000 borrowers. It also found that just over 500,000 were first time buyers – largely youngsters struggling to buy a home. We believe that HLC’s are just another money making ploy for the mortgage lenders. By the way, the Higher Lending Charge used to be called a Mortgage Indemnity Guarantee, but they are all the same – only the name is different!

We think it’s time for the Office of Fair Trading to open up the box and take a look inside in the same way as they did with credit cards. The OFT recently ordered many credit cards to reduce their charges by up to 40%. A bit of that magic would do wonders for Higher Lending Charges!

Current Stamp Duty rates on house purchases in the UK

Houses under £125,000 No Stamp Duty

Houses £125,000 to £249,995* 1%
Houses £250,000 to £499,995* 3%
Houses over £500,000 4%

*HM Inland Revenue rounds up house prices to the nearest £5. Therefore, a house sold for between £249,996 and £249,999 will be rounded up to £250,000 and they’ll charge you 3% Stamp Duty on the lot!
Information correct as from the April Budget 2006.

Michael Challiner is the exclusive finance editor writing for Brokers Online who offer their clients online access to the best mortgage rates and cheap life insurance.

Following the announcement detailing plans to charge residents on the Isle of Man with a compulsory broadband tax that will cover the cost of unlimited music downloads, new details have now come to light following a Digital Music Forum East event.

Under this proposed scheme any resident connected to the internet would be charged around £1 extra per month. Rather than give users free reign of their downloads, without any limit on data usage though, all ISPs servicing the Isle of Man would be instructed to install hardware with the ability to monitor network/P2P traffic for shared music files.

Using this system as a guide, artists would be offered “compensation” for downloaded material. The internet service providers (ISPs) would also receive a portion of the collected revenue. Unfortunately, as residents are cleared up on the potential costs involved with a compulsory music tax this now raises lots of questions on the subject of privacy. Also, it has also not been made clear whether this would also account for the downloading of other copyright content such as film, software or games.

This scheme is sure to rattle a few cages as it has also been confirmed this compulsory tax would be imposed on anyone with access to an internet service (not just broadband). Even without the scope to play music using existing hardware, residents and businesses would have to pay up.

Many people decry a time when man may merge with machine. Currently replacement of body parts is only done when someone is seriously injured such as an accident or in war. So far there is not a lot of talk about these issues and the technology and Bio Ethics debate, but you can hear some rumblings out there. Are people scared of the future? Many believe they are, especially as the replacement parts are better than the original. Maybe not better, but will last longer, be stronger and provide better performance. “better, faster, stronger!”

Regarding the replacement of body parts which are not working or have been failed in the human body, soon we will have choices of re-generation due to advances in BioTech, stem cell and other methods being theorized and researched with nanotech, enzyme, protein, RNA, DNA therapy and switching.

If you can get a Bionic Eye like Steve Austin or a Bionic Ear like Lindsey Wagoner, what is wrong with that? If I can get a computer chip with all the worlds libraries in my head attached somehow and accessible with my memory, why wouldn’t I? If we can help our young soldiers win more battles thru better uses of technologies or allow long-term space travel using such systems, why not? Think on this in 2006.

“Lance Winslow” – Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/

Bachelor gowns

Certificate holders are used to keep the certificate clean and neat without having any damage to it. Most holders are found in various stores and are of different shapes, sizes and designs. They are made from all sorts of materials and are presented in a stock line. The variety of the holders rage from, Esselte, geographical linen covers, anglers holder, Esselte JM 299900-055BGD, wedding certificate covers, first base metallic, Godinger wedding certificate holder and other kinds of certificate holders, Either in metallic black, gold, silver, bronze, brass, or any other metallic material. The right certificate holder to use or buy depends on the design and style of the person purchasing.

One does not have to buy ready-made certificate holders; it is possible to have a custom made or personalized certificate holder. Graduation certificates deserve a place of honor somewhere to display them, as it is a great achievement in life to have this evidence of education performance. Frames are normally used for corporate people when hang or displayed in the offices. This shows or proves that the person one is dealing with is qualified in his line of work and has great knowledge on what he is dealing with. This is especially known to happen in most professional companies like law firms, medical offices, architectures and other offices.

One of the big advantage of Chamonix is its proximity to Geneva. One is able to fly from London in the early morning and be skiing during the early afternoon. The achievement of BMI Baby and budget flights has meant lower flights moreover with great late ski deals and only a one hour taxi ride duration between the airport and Chamonix a ski break is now within the range of anyone; moreover all the luxury catered ski chalets are free from Thursday to the Sun to allow one to benefit from cheap plane tickets and empty slopes. From your greeting at Geneva international airport unitl receiving your ski passes waiting for the group on arrival; everything is reserved to guarantee that the group spends the least amount of time travelling and the most of your time skiing.

A weekend skiing in Chamonix town is an enjoyable holiday if you organise the finer details right so that the group can revel in your precious break. However that entails arranging the travel Geneva to Chamonix transfer and accommodation bang on and getting the group to the pistes as painlessly as possible. One’s goal is to provide you the maximum period of ski time time om the slopes and the min. hassle this is coupled with the usual impeccable standards of relaxation cooking and personal service. To this end we provide swift airport transfers superior ski chalets superior meals and we can recommend and organise guides and instructors.

When it comes to searching for the right kind of mortgage to meet your needs, you will probably come across a decision about who you should borrow from: Do mortgage brokers or banks make better lenders?

A mortgage broker is a mediator that facilitates the process of acquiring a mortgage for individuals as well as businesses. Essentially, they are like home loan supermarkets. Their broad access to lenders as well as their wide offering of various programs makes them a convenient source of help for many borrowers. If you have less-than-perfect credit or are in unusual circumstances, mortgage brokers can still find you the type of funding you need. Mortgage brokers will charge a broker’s fee, which you should ask about and take into account when calculating your initial payments.

Mortgage brokers will typically originate, process, and pass the loan on to a lender who will subsequently sell it to an investor. They take commission and will have higher closing fees. Beware of gouging, as brokers have full discretion on how much they want to charge the borrower for processing the documents necessary for the loan.

Today, about 20,000 mortgage brokerage operations account for more than 80% of mortgages are issued by mortgage brokers in the U.S. The convenience and resources they offer to borrowers is the key to their popularity.

The term “mortgage banker” refers either to an individual loan officer who works at a bank or to the bank itself. They specialize in originating mortgages and selling them to investors and continue to service them. Both the origination and servicing processes require fees, which are the two primary sources of income for mortgage banks.

A key difference between mortgage banks and mortgage brokers is that banks have more of a standardized and set approach to setting fees. Bankers are told what fees to charge and are told not to stray away from them. This allows for more stability and prevents the borrower from being surprised when it comes to discovering what the fees for the home loan will be.

Now the question is which is the better option? The answer is quite simple: Whoever gets you the better deal. It should be noted that while some borrowers enjoy the comfort and help of having a mortgage banker see them through the life of their loan (though not all do), while others do not mind either way. This discernment, along with a thorough comparison of deals that you can get from mortgage brokers and bankers, should give you a fairly clear idea of which path to take.

http://www.allmortgagenews.com

Too many people inside and outside the church world, seem to view marriage as little more than a hopeful roll of the dice. If you miss your number this time, absorb the loss and try another toss. The esteemed Barna Group assures us that there is no difference in the divorce rate for “Born-Again” and “non Born-Again” people, 35% of both Groups have at least one divorce under their belt. I can only guarantee two things. It is a sure bet God is not getting any Glory in our performance. It is a bad bet if in the quest for a Godly mate and marriage you put your faith on the roles.

In the time my wife and I have spent working with individuals and couples I have encountered an oft repeated complaint; it goes a bit like this. “If he would just lead, be the Godly man of this house then I could…” and the flipside “She just won’t submit to me, if she would be a Godly submitted wife then I could…” In nearly all cases it is the one’s fault in not fulfilling their “role” that holds the other back from fulfilling their “role”. What we try to stress to these spit spatters is that there is probably little wrong with their mates just with the role someone convinced you they should be playing and how you are relating to each other because of it.

Much of this misunderstanding goes back to Ephesians 5:22-33. So go get a Bible because I am not reprinting all the coming references in this article! Yes, women are to submit to their husbands as unto Christ. What gets muddled is the next verse. The Husband is her head AS Christ is the head of the church and savior of the Body. Now guys, let look at this with out cultural or self serving bias shall we?

Christ ascended to the Father remember, John 20:17 and he is interceding before the Father, Romans 8:34, in joint effort with the indwelling Holy Spirit, Romans 8:26-28 to work things to our good as our high priest, Hebrews 4:14-16 to allows us mercy and grace in times of need to accomplish God’s purpose in us. Now chew on that awhile.

Christ is the spiritual head of the church. He is in the Third Heaven entering the Most Holy by his shed blood, petitioning the Father on our behalf. He is not handling budgets, attending leadership meetings, mapping out giving or growth strategies or being bogged down in the hands on stuff. Remember we are to be trained and equipped for all this? See my last article on the Holy Spirit for an update. He is in fact The Master delegator, empoweror, healthy environment creator and perfect example in this and all areas of life.

So our wives should submit to our spiritual leadership expressed in our Priestly faithfulness to seek God prayerfully and in cooperation with His will and purposes, jointly with her and the Holy Spirit in her. All towards fruitfulness as expressed in His word. Peace, Love, Joy…, Galatians 5:22-23. This is so much more demanding than just pretending to be a Jesus loving General Patton and an over all macho righteous ruler wanna-be.

What about the hands on stuff? God used no cookie cutters when he made us and knew us before the foundations of the world were laid. Every individual has God given gifts, talents and temperaments that are ours. They are given to meet those specific plans, purposes and Divine Appointments that have been set before us. To be a successful, dynamic Christian couple two people have to be aware of their strengths and weaknesses and their mates. Then they must embrace and emphasis the strong points and understand and minimize the weak spots.

One tool I encountered in the six months of pre marital counseling my wife and I did some sixteen years ago was a personality assessment on a D.I.S.C. model. If you go to www.discinsights.com you will find an overwhelming list of resources. Go to the non-profit/small group section and you will find “The Biblical Profile”. This is an excellent tool to get a read on how God made your personality and how he used similar folks in the Bible to His Glory. There are free sights as well if you search DISC on any search engine. None of these are magic bullets, but they are helpful in better grasping who and what you and your mate are and are not as you work out the best blend. Seek Godly council if you need it though, self help can be self deceiving.

About the hands on stuff. In mutual consultation, if you are a detail or goal gifted person you should handle the planning and detailed stuff. If your mate is relationally and service motivated they should over see relating and serving also in mutual consultation. Use you giftings with wisdom. A “men must lead” mentality that is not grounded in love is a breeding ground for resentments, insecurities and abusive roles. Do not let preconceived notions or patterns that have failed in the past make your marriage unmanageable. Most roles are for actors. Married life is much better with few dramas and little tragedy. Though an occasional comedy can be refreshing as long as we are laughing at ourselves.

Come one step further with me if you will? Ephesians 5:25-33. Now this is our part guys. We are to love our wives as Christ loved the church. Boil it down and that means sacrificially! Matthew 20:28. We must love, cherish and serve our wives. We are in fact accountable for her spiritual growth. We must know her and place before her the recourses, and opportunities that will have her using what God put in her successfully to His Glory and our marriage and families best benefit as well.

By leading the charge towards blending two people into one flesh that maximizes strength, minimizes weakness and most glorifies our Lord. We can show the world what they are desperate to see. Loving, successful, functional families. Husbands and wives who work and serve best together and stay that way. If you must have a role, this is the one we as Christian couples are called to and Christian men as husbands are meant to be the leaders in.

Mr. Poff is a native of Salem, Virginia. He is currently the at home father of Quadruplets and is working on his Masters in Theology. In his spare time he enjoys time with his wife of fourteen years Pam on their small farm in Sedalia in Bedford County along with their six Children, eight horses, six dogs, six cats one Cockatiel and a Guinea Pig named Nibbles.

If you think that Adobe, Ulead or Corel make be best multimedia products, think again. There are dozens of innovative indies who develop excellent software for images and video and don’t charge you for the brand name.

A4 DVD Shrinker (DanDans Digital Media)

A4 DVD Shrinker is a tiny but fast DVD backup and shrinking tool. Why do you need one? How about taking your DVD collection and backing up several movies onto a single DVD, without compromising the quality in a short time? A4 DVD Shrinker shrinks all types of DVDs and fully backs them up to your hard drive or burns them to DVDR discs and you get to keep all DVD extra features, like interviews.

A4 DVD Shrinker is based on a proprietary DVD Engine and can shrink all DVD contents like Menus, Movie, Audio, Subtitles and Languages. It can also peel off CSS protection from commercial DVDs automatically so that you can make your own DVD copies no matter what copy protection is used on the original. The built-in high speed DVD burner supports all type of DVDR discs ( R, RW, -R, -RW). You do not need third party drivers or burning software installed either.

Paint Buster (SoftBusters)

Paint Buster is a compact and innovative image processing program. It is quite simple for beginners yet powerful for professionals. With Paint Buster you can resize, crop, rotate, cut and paste and enhance your family photographs as well as create images for the home web-page. The best thing, you don’t have to be a designer to do that.

Paint Buster gives you complete control of your images, on pixel, color, palette and print level. With a click of a button, you have a huge number of paint tools at your disposal. All with anti-aliasing, transparency and texture capabilities. It supports JPEG, GIF, TIF, PNG, BMP, ICO, PCX, and TGA formats.

This standard-issue image-editing application offers a solid set of tools for tweaking your digital photos. Paint Buster’s interface echoes that of other applications in this class, with various icons for brushes, pens, and drawing tools surrounding the large image-preview window.

VirtualDJStudio 3.0 (Next Generation Software)

VirtualDJStudion 3.0 (VDJ3) is a virtual mixing console for DJs, professional and aspiring. You can play multiple MP3 and Wav files, with tempo/pitch control for beat-matching. Plus, easily set a configurable number of ‘lines’, each of which has its own MP3/WAV file player, volume control, pitch/tempo control, and other options. The program includes a 10-band EQ, plugin support, integrated File Navigator, and Playlist Editor.

VirtualDJStudio is not like all of the other DJ programs out there. While other programs limit you to two players with a Cross-Fader, Virtual DJ Studio provides you with an entire studio. Also, it’s more demanding and takes time to learn.

Super Bot (SparkleWare)

Super Bot can download files, folders, or entire websites with as little as one click. The program uses HTML rewriting technology, so copied sites look and feel like the online versions.

Super Bot let’s users browse at faster speeds, by loading files directly from your hard drive not the server (offline browsing). You can view websites without an Internet connection and archive pictures, videos, sounds and other Net content on your computer. Super Bot makes it easy to create functional and editable mirrors of online sites as well as browse a website’s internal structure and organization. One good application for Sparkleware’s Super Bot is to sanitize children’s browsing by creating a “sandbox” of age-appropriate material. You can create autorun CDs and DVDs of your favorite sites too.

Download Links:

A4DVDShrinker: http://www.deprice.com/a4dvdshrinker.htm

Paint Buster: http://www.deprice.com/paintbuster.htm

VirtualDJStudio: http://www.deprice.com/virtualdjstudio.htm

Super Bot: http://www.deprice.com/superbot.htm

John Deprice owns and operates http://www.deprice.com